


What is Human

by Unloyal_Olio



Series: What is Human [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alpha!Khan, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But Kirk is kind of an alpha too..., Dubious Consent, Flipper, Khan is a big fat know-it-all, Khan/Past Relationship, Kirk is a sassy beyatch, Klingon Opera, Knotting, Lazarus blood, Lots of Eugenic Era/Tyrannical References, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Original Aliens - Freeform, Poor Piloting, Sexist Language, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers, Stylized violence, Vulcan Prejudice, flangst, just lots of smex, water works of the delightful variety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-20 09:35:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unloyal_Olio/pseuds/Unloyal_Olio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Khan is about to go all terrorist when he finds out that Admiral Marcus has a <i>daughter.</i></p><p>James Kirk, as he does, gets in the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was really excited when I found out that Cumberbatch was going to be playing Khan. Really excited. Thus this fic. 
> 
> So right.... this ST Into Darkness AU (Canon Divergence) is a hot plotty mess. I think it qualifies as a fun ~~hump~~ romp, but anyway, it delves into camp before beaming back up to reality. So, um, yeah. Also, I decided to make Khan into alpha!Khan because I could. Therefore, it has some elements of omegaverse, but I wouldn't remotely call Kirk an omega... so *shrug*
> 
> As a final side note, this isn't beta'd but I do my best. :)

Khan wants to burn out his brains.

Because they are dead. All of them. His crew. His _family._

Marcus had sent the message: **You broke the deal. Face the consequences.**

When it comes to his family, Khan has never been rational. In his day, when the Augmented ruled, there were rituals for this sort of thing. One’s kin sought revenge on behalf of the wronged. Khan himself had launched at least three battles due to slights against his bloodline. Like the time Ash had impregnated not one but _all three_ of Raja the Efficient’s daughters at the same time. The whole failure in diplomacy had been spectacularly diverting. 

It was the best part of having a family, really. They gave you purpose in your play. And in the end, when it had become clear that the anti-eugenic Democratists had the upper hand—that the ants were retaking the mole hill, so to speak—Khan had made the easy decision to get the hell off planet Earth. Because losing a kingdom was nothing compared to losing his family. Khan would give it up all over again. It is why he’s ready to raze the thin mantle beneath his feet in this very moment. Words like “genocide” and “mass terror” feel satisfying when he hisses them under his breath. Except now there’s no one around to exact his revenge for him. No one to hold him down until the ritual is finished.

He takes a breath. Then another. Then he loads up his fake registration (“John Harrison,” the most mundane name ever) into the computer and logs into the Starfleet server. An hour later he’s completed his review of Starfleet dossiers and has a target: Thomas Harewood. The man has two things Khan wants:

1\. A top-level security clearance in Section 31  
2\. A beloved daughter on the brink of death. 

Bingo, as they used to say.

Khan is all ready to send a transmission when a name on the Starfleet homepage catches his eye: “Carol Marcus Receives Accolades for Groundbreaking Paper on Transgenic Space Carriage.”

A daughter. Marcus has a daughter. Heart pounding, Khan clicks. And he’d meant to just confirm the identity—that this is Marcus’s spawn—but he ends up reading the whole damn paper. It focuses on the effects of light-speed travel with variant pressures on mutating substances and how such mutations could be rapidly expanded (or stopped dead) if the variables were calibrated properly. It is bloody fascinating. It even suggests that life could evolve in the dead of space. Khan is, to his own astonishment, floored by the findings. Well, and then he has to go and look up her picture.

He stares at the image on his screen for several long minutes. She’s a little Aryan fucking princess. And with _that IQ._ Then Khan goes over to the refrigerator and pulls out the set of red vials. The one at the end is pink. It’s the blood serum from his heat. He rolls it in his palm, wondering if it would be necessary.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, Khan is going to steal Carol Marcus.

And then Admiral Marcus will know how losing your family really _feels_.

\- - -

If there is one thing that Khan is good at it’s romance.

He, after all, was the one that actually earned the hand of Klia—the unconquerable cunt—as the male Augments used to call her. Which is to say that Klia simply refused to treaty with anyone. Rather, each day, she’d enjoyed an orgy. With at least ten lovers. Walking to the room, she’d announce, “I am the virgin queen,” and then she would laugh, drop the veil off her walnut-coloured shoulders, and start with the first. She always chose smart, strapping young men. As soon as one was finished pounding into her (or being pounded upon, her mood depending) she would signal for the next. Occasionally, she deigned to include leaders of nations. She had four beautiful children—and no one dared guess at their fathers. Anyway, that was the way Klia used to be.

Until Khan.

And how had he done it? 

There was initial interest. Khan, ostensibly, was one of their Father’s middle creations. He had mimicked various mammalian sex traits when engineering Khan, which meant he had bloody _heats_. Khan rather hated them. Losing control like that didn’t seem to be ideal Darwinism. But all of the Augmented women were damn interested. They talked about their times with him as if they were old war stories.

There was just something about a real challenge.

Like Klia was a challenge. Yet Khan wasn’t just smart; he was clever. He hadn’t shown up at one of her sex salons and tried to impress her with his genital ring size. No, Khan had written her a nice, long letter asking her out on a date. He bought her flowers (black orchids from the heart of the Amazon, to be exact). Then over dinner they discussed Hobbs for a solid hour. How they had laughed. At the end, Khan had kissed her on the doorstep of her palace and flown home.

Every other week on Fridays, he’d repeated the procedure. Numerous times, she’d attempted to have her way with him. Cutting the leather straps, Khan had insisted “not yet.” Then, at six months, he’d proposed. Without hesitation, Klia had accepted. In fact, she’d planned the ceremony for the next weekend.

The day after their wedding, she’d held one of her soirees like it was any other day. But this time, Khan as her _husband_ was there. He’d made eunuchs of the few idiots who hadn’t run fast enough, and then he’d taken his wife and publicly laid his claim.

He and Klia had been happy. If she was over the top, Khan was happy to be underhanded. In their twenty years of marriage, neither was ever bored. And they’d had a son together. Ash. Ash who is now dust in space. Blown up in a missile of his own father’s making.

God, Khan needs to keep it together. Now is not the time for that. He has a mission.

Carol Marcus is sitting on a bench in the Academy’s quad. Her blond hair partially obscures her face, but with the sunlight on her coifed little bob, she’s even more beautiful in person than in the online photograph. At the moment, she is bent over her PADD like she’s reading but… she’s definitely not reading. Her eyes are focused on the Command Headquarters on the opposite side.

Marcus is not in there. He’s holed up on the other side of Jupiter playing house in the space Nautilus that Khan helped him build. So just who is Carol waiting for?

Khan leans back against a tree and draws in on a cigarette. He’s trying to look like another wearied post-doc researcher but he’s not entirely sure if he fits in. He knows he’s got the jacket right and the hair, but he’s not sure about the rest. This era is more sleek industrial—less gilded—than his own. The evidence of a society that has embraced space travel is everywhere. Aliens--some of them green, in fact--walk side by side with humans and Tellarites. It's astounding. People do seem happier, though. 

A lack of tyranny does that. Oh, if only Klia had listened...

Khan is so lost in his own comparisons that he startles when Carol jumps to her feet. She moves so fast she even drops her own PADD. She picks it up only to drop it again. And then she flat out races across the yard closer toward where Khan is standing. Except she’s not running toward Khan. She’s running toward…

A boyfriend?

She’s yelling, “Kirk! Kirk! Captain James Kirk!”

The man she’s chasing is too young to be a captain. Also, his eyes. Khan recognizes the augment at once. You don’t get a blue like that without having some positive eugenic enhancement in your genetic history. But the eyes are the least of his riches, really. The man is, impossibly, even more beautiful than the woman chasing him. It’s still odd, though, that he doesn’t even look over his shoulder to acknowledge her. He just says, “I’m not a Captain anymore.”

“First Officer Kirk, then. My name is Carol Marcus. I need to talk to you.” She grabs his arm.

Obviously pissed, Kirk turns around—only to react in a fashion not dissimilar to Khan’s. He loses his edge at seeing the pure loveliness of the woman. “What?”

“You’re still on the Enterprise,” she says.

“Under Captain Pike... You are _Marcus’s_ daughter, seriously?”

Both hands go on her hips. “I need you to get me assigned to your ship as Science Officer.”

This causes Kirk’s face to darken. “Uh, your daddy is the admiral. Ask him if you want nepotism.”

“I don’t want—” She cuts herself off. “It’s what he’s _doing._ You need my help.”

Kirk scrubs at his eyes. “This day sucks. What I need is a drink.”

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

Kirk’s hands are suddenly off his face and he’s grinning. “I love it when that happens.”

Carol’s teeth snap shut. “One drink—and we talk.”

\- - -

Khan can’t hear what Carol is saying to Kirk because this infernal club is playing Romulan pop rhythms. It makes him miss the good old days when Klia would have just banned it. But these are horrible new days, so instead, he orders Vega Terraine, the most expensive whisky on the shelf, and reads up everything he can on James T. Kirk, which actually makes the time pass with relative speed. 

It seems that Kirk saved earth. Then got demoted—for saving a Vulcan.

Seriously, a Vulcan?

Khan would label the ex-captain a pretty face but then he hacks into his Academy files—which also leads him to Kirk’s various youthful run-ins with the law. So it turns out that Kirk is a bad boy genius. If Khan had been nursing an attraction before, he can now say it’s blossomed into _want_.

As promised, Carol stays for a single drink. Her rather fine arse is off the chair the moment she takes a final sip. “Think about it,” she says as she stands.

Kirk grimaces like he’d rather do anything but. When she walks to the door, Khan realizes he should be following her. She’s his target. She’s supposed to be his target. Except the Khan has a moment of hesitation and looks back towards Kirk. 

Kirk’s eyes follow Carol out the door, but then they flash—and lock right on Khan’s. It is not expected. Khan’s not used to people meeting his gaze (Klia, the menace, had trained their servants to look down), but Kirk meets Khan’s eyes with lazy confidence and then he smiles.

When Khan hesitantly smiles back, Kirk positively skips across the room. His elbows go right onto the oak counter next to Khan and he smiles with ivory teeth. “You know it’s rude to stare when someone’s on a date,” he says.

“Oh? Are you sure that was a date?” Khan is highly aware that he’s now staring intensely into Kirk’s blue eyes. 

“Hey,” Kirk protests. “She bought me a drink.”

“Takes two drinks to make it a date.”

“Psh. And is _that_ what I think it is?” He’s pointing at Khan’s whisky.

“Yes, it’s Vega,” Khan says, and holds up a finger for the bartender. When he has his attention (easily gotten having ordered so lavishly), he points to his drink and holds up two fingers. “Furthermore, it’s not a date if you only discuss work.”

Kirk’s face tightens ever so slightly. “Do you know who I am?”

Khan pushes the whisky at him. “Don’t be paranoid and dull. You don’t know who I am and that is infinitely more interesting.”

Kirk rolls his eyes but he’s back to smiling as he picks up the drink. “I could find out.”

“You would have to try very hard.”

“How hard?” Kirk’s grin is downright lascivious.

He is far too pretty. Far too charming. This is such a bad idea, and yet Khan asks, “Are you always so easy?”

Kirk snorts. “Bad day. Got demoted. And I’m not that _easy_ —it takes two drinks to make it a date, yeah?” He downs the first, making a noise of pure pleasure and holds up his glass for a second.

“That is not the way you drink Vega Terraine.” Khan doesn’t keep the scandalized tone out of his voice.

Kirk accepts the second glass from the bartender then turns to Khan with a more relaxed smile. “The first time can be fast, right? You savour the second.” He smacks his lips. “Drink every last drop.”

“Oh?” Khan leans in.

Kirk, the tramp, licks at the condensation on the end of his glass. “What’s your name?”

“John Harrison. What shall I call you?”

“Jim,” he says. “And why were you watching me—like that?”

“You know it’s fascinating that you could even see me out of the corner of your eye. That indicates unusually accurate peripheral vision. Most of the population doesn’t have that.”

“But you do.” Kirk takes another small sip from his glass. “At first I thought you were just focused on Carol—but then nope, me too.”

“Maybe I liked both of you,” Khan says neutrally.

Kirk puts a finger in the centre of his chest. “Me better.”

“Are you always this cocky?” Khan asks, but he’s swirling his drink and smiling. Lord, when was the last time he smiled? The muscles feel stiff.

“And flirty?” Kirk adds. “Only when the drinking is this good and the person of interest is as hot as you. I mean, besides all the awesome repartee. That’s pretty much unbeatable. Can I get a third?” He points at his glass.

“If the first is fast and the second is savoured... then what is the third?” Khan asks and he’s teasing, playing, really, so he doesn’t expect Kirk’s response.

“Whatever way you want.” His voice is dark, slightly distressed, and God, his day must have really been shit. And what does it say that Khan wants to make it better any way he can?

Khan orders the Vega. When Kirk offers him the last sip, Khan grabs him by the collar and kisses him instead.

\- - -

They’re walking to Khan’s place. It’s taking longer than necessary because Jim keeps pushing him into the bricks to make out like teenagers, and every time it happens it gets harder to pull away because Jim’s hands start searching for his skin beneath the fabric of his shirt. And pressed like they are, Khan can feel that Kirk is as hard as he is, but _this_ is not the place. Thus, Khan keeps pushing those clever hands away insisting, "Bed."

Though, it’s more than that. In part, it’s nerves. Khan hasn’t done this in an age. Hasn’t been with a man since before Klia (she was the jealous type). And in the later years, when political turmoil had demanded their time, most of their encounters had been during Khan’s heats.  
　  
Khan’s current residence is in the Ming building. It has lost all of it’s former glory, but Ming’s cannabis den—with the secret door and satellite uplink was still in tact and undiscovered. It had required a serious dusting, but for the past two weeks, Khan has been using it as a lab. Khan has only just gotten Kirk in the front door of the apartment, though, when a black shape aims a gun at them.  
　  
The fact that Kirk is in the line of fire—and causes the assassin to hesitate—gives Khan the 1.3 seconds that he needs. He throws a punch at the firing arm—it hits right at juncture of the tendon and ligaments. There’s an audible snap of tissue as the phaser goes off. Because it’s pointed down, it hits the shooter in the foot. The man collapses.  
　  
"Oh, good to know. The phaser was set to stun," Khan says cheerily. It means Marcus still wants him alive. What a stupid, stupid little man.  
　  
Khan looks up to see Kirk gaping at him. Over his shoulder, there's a shift in the shadows outside the window.  
　  
"More are coming," Khan says, and he races to the secret door. It’s good that he’s planned for this, though he’d hoped to be the one pursuing—not the one being chased.  
　  
"Why are they after you?" Kirk is right behind him. Khan shouldn’t be surprised. Everything in his file says "danger magnet," but the assassin had a Starfleet emblem and Kirk must be questioning who is friend and who is enemy at the moment.  
　  
"Admiral Marcus wants me back. He needs my genius to wage pre-emptive war on the Klingons." Khan plugs in the code for the door and then yanks Kirk through as it swishes open. A phaser shot comes dangerously close to Kirk’s ankle and a second shot crackles across the door’s metal shielding as it closes in the nick of time.  
　  
"Wait—you’re _the_ Augment?" Kirk’s hands claw into his hair and he spins in a circle in the middle of the small room.

"Mmm, yes. I assume Carol told you about the renegade Augment? That was the real topic of your bar conversations, after all." Khan doesn't wait for confirmation, marching to the opposite side of the room and executing the charge on the transporter. It’s going to take at least a minute and thirty seconds to juice. Especially with the distance that he’s travelling.  
　  
"You said your name was John Harrison, but that’s not your name. You were tracking Carol."  
　  
"What—I’m not what you imagined an Augment to be?" Khan puts on a pout, though he doesn’t look up from the screen in front of him.  
　  
"No, you’re…" Kirk glares at the coordinates Khan is pressing into the transporter. "That’s the Neutral Zone."  
　  
"Safest place." Khan grabs his gear off the table. Then he goes to fridge and pulls out the small pack of vials. He steps onto the transporter and then he’s just staring at Kirk. "I’m sorry we were interrupted. Really I am. Jim Kirk, we could have been good friends.”

“Friends?” Kirk looks ready to laugh.

“Think you could give me a head start by not telling them _exactly_ where I’m going?"  
　  
"They won’t chase you there," Kirk says.  
　  
Khan laughs bitterly. "Marcus is worse than a mad raccoon. He’ll chase me into the light of day, have no doubt."  
　  
"That would mean war," Kirk says and with his mouth open, he looks genuinely horrified—and beautiful. God, Khan wants to kiss him.  
　  
Next to him, the power levels are at 90%. Twelve seconds.  
　  
Behind Kirk the metal door rumbles and shakes. It’s going to be close.  
　  
"How can I stop it?" Kirk asks.  
　  
Khan decides he means the war. Not the door. "You can’t," Khan answers.  
　  
Five seconds. A black puddle is forming on the metal door. The air around them is suddenly scalding.  
　  
Three seconds.

Khan has to blink when Kirk charges at him.  
　  
But Jim doesn’t punch or attempt to throw him off the pad. No, Jim steps into his arms and holds him. His hands brace so tightly that Khan can’t breathe. Doesn’t care to.  
　  
1.5 seconds.  
　  
Khan should throw him off, but being held like this… Khan doesn’t want it to stop.  
　  
There’s the feeling of sudden lightness. Everything goes white.  
　  
-  
  
And then jams back together in a push of colour and sound. There’s pain as his spine crashes against the earth. The air is so much dryer. The oxygen is lower—Khan has to take longer, deeper breaths. Around them dark red cliffs form a bare canyon. They made it. Except…  
　  
Khan’s stomach twists and he retches alcohol onto the cracked, clay earth. At his side, Kirk is dry heaving and Khan wrenches the man upright so he can clear his throat.  
　  
They’ll get through this. They just need shelter. Water. Food.  
　  
Khan forces himself to move. He gets the tent out of his back and lodges the stakes into the cliff side. The camouflage is passable but Khan rolls some larger rocks over to further block the wind and hide them from view. After he’s made Kirk drink two bottles of water and shove down a ration bar, Khan collapses on the dirt next to the bedroll.  
　  
Who knows how long he sleeps?  
　  
But when he awakens he doesn’t feel better. Not remotely. If anything, Khan’s throat is dryer. There’s a bitterness to his mind that he can’t wash away. It’s not the grief he’s been feeling. It’s more. It’s…

Khan presses his hand into his crotch and flat-out whimpers.

No. Not his heat.  
　  
He counts the weeks before deciding that the effort is useless.  
　  
No one has conducted a study on cryogenic stasis and its effects on suppressed heat hormones. Well, possibly the Vulcans have done so, but Khan never read the study.  
　  
At his side, Kirk is curled into a ball. The sleeves of his shirt have risen up and Khan can make out the graceful curl of his biceps. There’s the slight scarring on the underside of his chin. There’s a bruise from their hard landing on his elbow. The man looks so terribly mortal human and breakable. God, Khan could _kill_ him.  
　  
There’s only one thing to do. He shakes Kirk awake.  
　  
"Hey, Superman," Kirk says with a grumpy smile. "Normal people need sleep…" And then he rolls back over.  
　  
"Wake up. You are not normal. And I—" Khan makes himself take a breath and very calmly he says, "I am in heat."  
　  
That causes Kirk to roll back over and raise a sticky eyelid. "Like Ponn Farr?"  
　  
Why always the comparisons to Vulcans? "Yes” —he allows— “which is why I need you to take this." He holds up the pink vile.  
　  
Kirk frowns. "I don’t do drugs—these days. See, Starfleet has these regulations and semi-annual tests…"

"I won’t be myself. I will be out of my mind. I won’t want to do it, but I might kill you."  
　  
"From sex?"  
　  
"It gets violent." Klia used to proudly show him the bill for household repairs afterwards—like it was a report card.  
　  
"And the magical syringe is going to make it less violent?" Jim stares down sceptically at Khan’s open palm.  
　  
"No. I believe it will make you stronger—and more pliable." Khan cringes as he says that. As for the rest of it, Khan isn’t completely sure. Klia had tested his heat blood on rats for a couple of trials, but they’d never gotten around to additional testing. All Khan knows is that the rats went into frenzy and that litter sizes doubled. As long as both of them had the blood. 

"What about the red vial?" Kirk asks.  
　  
"Effective but short term. It’ll give you healing and strength for a day or so, and I might be able to use a second to heal you afterwards." If Khan regained his mind fast enough…  
　  
Both of Kirk’s brows go up. "How long do these heats last?"  
　  
"Approximately a week."  
　  
"Fuck."  
　  
They are quiet for a moment, but Khan is feeling increasingly warm. He pulls at the back of shirt collar. There’s the tension in his thighs. The dryness in his throat is starting to become painful. "I need to get going."  
　  
"There’s no alternative?" Jim asks.  
　  
There is one. Khan goes and gets the laser launcher out of his pack. He sets it with a thump in Kirk’s lap. "You can try and shoot me. If you take that route, I highly recommend you obscure your location and aim from a distance."  
　  
Kirk makes a noise of protest.  
　  
The high sound goes right to Khan’s dick. "I need to leave." Khan pointedly looks away.  
　  
"You’re on a Klingon planet. Where the hell are you planning on going?" Kirk pushes the weapon off of his lap.  
　  
"As far away as possible," Khan says, and then he crawls out of the tent flaps.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, next chapter in a day! 
> 
> And warnings: very smexy timez (the consent is also a bit dubious--as it says in the warnings) and violence--cuz Kirk and Khan are BAMF and stuff.

Kirk feels like he’s been tarred and feathered. Then again, using Scotty’s transwarp beaming formula tends to do that. Especially on low power. At least this time, Kirk hasn’t ended up in the Enterprises’s plumbing. Then again, he is on a Klingon planet—in the Neutral Zone—with a sex-crazed human-augment who is probably going to fuck him to death.

Kirk supposes he really should be more upset about this than he is.

Then again, John—no, not _John_ —Kirk needs to find out his real name. Anyway, Kirk’s superman had been all frantic and dire. And compared to the ruthlessly cool vibe he’d been rocking before, it was intriguing to watch him spazz out and crazy just _lose_ it. Plus, there had been the way he’d crawled on all fours out of the tent, and let it not be said that Kirk isn’t easily distracted. But right—so right, anyway, Kirk needs to make a decision.

First off, he isn’t going to _kill_ his superman. Who does that?

Well, unless someone is really going to rape you. But this isn’t exactly that. Not exactly. 

Not yet. 

Kirk stares at the little pink syringe in his hand. He considers playing eenie meenie miney mo, but then he pauses. “What would Spock do?” he says aloud.

Spock would probably shoot Kirk’s superman.

Freaking cold Vulcans.

Okay, Kirk kind of misses the pointy-eared bastard, but he is still so super-pissed off about that unnecessarily _honest_ paperwork.

Seriously, Vulcans. Save their lives and then they hamstring you with red tape.

Back to the matter at hand. What would Spock do if he actually _liked_ sex?

He would take the plunge with the pink syringe. Kirk is sure. It would be all self-sacrificial and blah blah blah logic—blah—more logic. Granted, Mr. Superman hadn’t seemed all that _sure_ about the effects of the little pink vial. But he’d reported with confidence that the effects of the red syringe are short-term. …and short term isn’t so bad.

Kirk gives one of the red ones an experimental tap, and then he presses the hypo against his arm and presses the release.

Naturally, his hands start to immediately swell.

“Sonuvabitch,” Kirk mutters. He makes his way over to where the pack is and starts sorting through the contents. Most of the inventory, Kirk is pretty happy to discover, is food. And so he shoves what is definitely a chocolate bar in his mouth as he searches for a first-aid kit. In a side pocket, he finds a battered wood case wrapped in a flight suit and inside the case there is definitely an epi pen—score. But there is also a note etched into the wood: **To Khan. May Your Wounds Heal with Speed. –Klia.**

 _The_ Klia?

Like Klia the Crazy from the Eugenics Wars? They used to say she was Marie Antoinette plus sex times infinity.

Then again, Carol said that her dad was working with an Augment. You’d probably assume that an Augment would know other Augments… 

Jim hasn’t heard of the deeds of a “Khan” among the old warlord histories, but then again, who knows?

Shaking his head, Kirk picks up the epi, ready to give himself a good hypo—except his hands are now dead-steady. The swelling is already gone, and when Kirk examines the underside of his right palm, the burn mark from that “unfortunate engineering episode” is absent (Bones had been crazy pissed that Kirk waited so long to get to sick bay). The tattoo on Kirk’s hip is burning like a motherfucker. Kirk yanks the mirror out of the first-aid kit to look at his face. The scarring on the underside of his chin is kind of puffy but the skin looks smoother.

“Cool,” he says.

In the distance, there is a rumble of rock. Kirk hears a roar but then second-guesses himself. His hearing is being weird, overly sensitive.

He goes pee, and then because he is feeling particularly limber, he decides to lift a boulder. A big, dense one.

Kirk is kind of in love with the little red vials.

Back in the tent, Kirk squeezes the flight suit on. With the goggles and the mask, it should provide some decent protection from the elements. Then he grabs the full pack of syringes and half of the food. He puts the pack on his back, slings the launcher across his chest, and sets off in the opposite direction that his superman went.

Worst comes to worst, Kirk will have to take the plunge with the pink syringe.

Instead, he’s less than a kilometer out when he runs into Klingons.

\- - -

Khan has just hunted down what seems to be a giant rhinoceros-like yak. The infernal creature had charged him from behind—as if Khan couldn’t hear it clomping around on the rocks—and Khan had his knife through the creature's throat before it could issue its first bay of challenge.

The mess is simultaneously disgusting and empowering, and Khan has to rip his shirt off because it’s covered in dark-red (nearly black) fluid.

It’s what he was bred to do: kill. Be a super-soldier. Yet he’s pressed that instinct down as far as it will go. But now…

Khan briefly considers dragging the beast back to the campsite by its horns. Jim needs meat.

Wait— _Jim._

Khan’s head swims. When he’s regained his balance, he’s squatting down, hands pressed on either side for balance. His finger nails claw into the rock.

The dead beast before him is already being beset by small black beetles. Khan is watching them with macabre fascination when in the distance, he hears another sound. A sizzling snap in the air. For a second, Khan checks the sky, thinking it might be some unknown raptor, but then he hears the high whistle of phasers, and lower tones… like roars.

Without a doubt, Jim has found trouble.

Knife in hand, Khan sets off at a dead run.

\- - -

So Kirk has been in a really good mood. He’s been trying to confuse his trail a bit, so he zigzags among the giant monoliths in the canyon. The wind is dry and pushes with heavy gusts, but Kirk has his suit and good shoes on, so he isn’t sweating it. And as he enters the shadowed west side, maybe he should be paying more attention to the strange hollow sounds his steps make as he walks over one of the small hills in the hollow, but how is he to know that he’s walking over a camouflaged D-7?

He finds out when a hatch pops open out of the dirt, and a ridged face appears.

For a second, the Klingon and he stare at each other. Clearly, neither was expecting the other.

But then the douche bag fucking aims his laser pistol at Kirk—and Kirk has to dive for cover.

Then, from his behind his shelf of rock, he fires back. The kickback from the launcher is intense (Kirk nearly falls over despite his red syringe mojo), but the shot is downright explosive. It doesn’t just fry the Klingon with its head sticking out—it seems to melt the whole damn hatch.

Except that then more hatches start opening up. A lot more hatches.

The Klingons _swarm_. Three charge from the west, and behind him, there are at least two giant ones, dressed in black skins and armed with freaking rusty swords. Kirk gives up on aiming for the individual knuckleheads and shoots instead for the tall column of rocks arching over them. It buries them in rock.

He keeps firing as he dodges among the rock pillars, and there’s an opening in the canyon behind him. Kirk really, really hopes it’s not a dead end. In the background, a deep pounding causes the earth to shiver beneath his feet, and Kirk wonders if that’s the intruder-alert. He charges up what seems to be a curving slope. It’s going up, and behind him Kirk hears company so he doesn’t look back, just pumps his arms and sprints like his feet have wings.

At the top of canyon, Kirk can barely see for the sweat in his eyes, but his vision is clear enough to make out that the trail disintegrates—there’s evidence of a rock slide below. And that would be shitty enough except that standing twelve feet away on the other side of the trail is not-John Harrison. Mahogany blood is smeared across his chest. His pants are ripped across the knees, and the icy glaze of his eyes is downright bestial. “First, throw me the launcher. Then jump,” he commands.

Behind Kirk, it sounds like an ocean wave is coming between the roars and thump-thump of heavy feet. 

Kirk figures he’s damned either way so he tosses the launcher and then he jumps.

\- - -

Khan feels a bit short-circuited. Part of him is just relieved—overjoyed that he has Jim back. Khan can lick and sniff at his neck and card his fingers through Jim’s hair. Because Jim is his and his and his—and the Klingons want to _steal_ him.

On an average day, such a provocation would call upon his wrath, but today is not average. Today, Khan is in heat, and those toads are attacking his chosen.

Khan pushes Kirk behind a boulder (Kirk does not seem happy about the shove) and then he raises the launcher to engage his enemy.

The first pair are not expecting the counterattack so they go down with an easy one-two clicks on the trigger, and then the next pair takes cover.

Not acceptable.

Khan leaps across the gap in the rock and catches them before they can get an aim on him.

There’s fire from above—Khan back-fires from the launcher at the expected trajectory and hears a confirming scream.

Then, because he needs to buy some time, he fires on the lower part of the trail until it, too, starts to slide down the mountain.

Khan uses his last two seconds of stability to jump back to Jim. It’s just in time to see Kirk plunge one of the red syringes into his arms. “Is your name Khan?” Jim asks. “I could keep calling you Superman, which is pretty apt, but…”

“Khan Noonien Singh—and _move_.” Khan yanks Jim to his feet. The tang of blood in the air has made Khan surprisingly clear-headed. And this fight is far from over.

“So they’re going to keep hunting us,” Jim says as they charge up the hill. He has no problem keeping pace with Khan. The blood was a good idea, Khan thinks. “As long as we’re on this planetoid-moon-wherever we are.”

“Correct,” Khan says and that’s when he make the u-turn back toward the canyon’s interior.

Kirk skids to a stop. “Wait—why are we heading _back_ toward the hoard of Klingons?”

“Because,” Khan says, checking the charge on the launcher, “they won’t expect that. And we have to get off this planet.” Hiding is really not an option, and not just because the Klingons are ruthless. Khan’s instincts need to be directed toward the fight, because if they redirect themselves toward Kirk…

“And just how are we going to do that?” Rather than be disbelieving, Jim looks thrilled to the core.

“Easy. We’ll steal a ship.”

\- - -

Unsurprisingly, at least three scouts have launched by the time they make it back to the canyon’s edge. Dust clouds the air and it makes for decent camouflage as they scurry from rock to rock. There’s only one ship left. And while it’s not exactly covered in Klingons—Kirk counts six.

“Hold this.” Khan shoves the launcher at Kirk before pulling out a knife.

“You can’t use a knife on a Klingon,” Kirk hisses. “It’ll be a pin prick. They have extra organs galore just so they can stab each other for fun.”

Khan doesn’t remove his gaze from the Klingons around the ship. “First heart.” He makes an upper cut. “Back-up valve.” He makes a horizontal slash. “And if you aim carefully between the chest plate and the clavicle, you can hit the second and third hearts in one.” Khan stabs the air.

Kirk is mostly horrified and also embarrassingly turned on by the show-and-tell. “How do you know so much about Klingons if you were frozen for the last couple hundred years?”

“Marcus,” Khan hisses, and then, ducking low, he attacks.

It is frankly terrifying to watch. Khan takes out two Klingons in quick succession with the exact three strikes he demonstrated for Kirk. When taking out a third, a fourth catches notice, but Khan uses his current victim’s laser pistol to fire a fast triangle into his chest. Then there are two left. 

Kirk fires the launcher at one while Khan attacks the second. 

“Ship now,” Khan says and then he jumps down the open hatch.

“Yes, but how are we going to fly it?” Kirk mutters, but because there’s no other choice, he runs blindly after Khan and hops down the hatch.

Inside the ship, Khan is fighting a female. Kirk isn’t exactly sure how he knows it’s a female (the nose and the hair?) but the outraged howl she makes when Khan knocks her into a pipe seems more high-pitched than the rumble of the males.

Kirk expects to see another flash of Khan’s knife but instead, he catches the Klingon lady by the arms and marches her thrashing form down the ship’s passageway—before trying to throw her into one of the two thick-barred cages. If she was thrashing before, it’s like watching a cat being put into a bathtub as she screams and twists and claws to avoid going through the metal bars. But then she’s in the cage. Khan has the door slammed shut and oh hell, she is positively screaming.

Kirk’s universal translator is getting something about “No honor!” and “You will welcome death a thousand times once I’ve made you suffer!”

“It’s one thing to read about it, and a completely different thing to see it in person. Klingons really do _disdain_ capture,” Khan says as he brushes past Kirk. He’s heading to the command room.

“Uh, and how the hell are you expecting to fly this ship?” Kirk asks as Khan sits down at the controls… and starts pressing buttons.

“Like, I said, _Marcus_.” And then Khan pushes down on what must be the throttle. 

The ship shoots into the sky.

Down the passageway, Kirk hears an angry wail.

“The coordinates I’ve set should put us just outside Federation space—between two moons with decent shielding. The journey will take 84 hours. No one will find us there. However, just in case.” Khan points at a green spiral. “Widen and pinch your fingers over that one for shields. Slam the pylon next to it if you want to fire. That’s the comm system on the far side.” He points at command desk that seems to have an extra speaker or two. 

“Why ‘just in case?’”

“Because I,” Khan says, not stopping, “am going to lock myself in the other cage.” 

This is the first time Kirk realizes that Khan hasn’t really looked him in the eyes since they rendezvoused. And as Khan marches away from him, Kirk doesn’t miss how his whole form is trembling. It makes Kirk wonder if Khan’s heat is like a Vulcan’s. How much will _he_ hurt if he doesn’t mate?

Kirk is still standing at the end of the hallway when he hears the iron click of the lock. Then there’s a great deal of cursing in Klingon which cuts off into silence when Khan let out a bass growl.

This is so not happening. Kirk takes a moment to adjust to his surroundings. He replays in his head the instructions that Khan gave him. Then he walks over to the comm system and plugs in the Terran transmission coordinates for one Leonard McCoy.

“Not dead,” he says into what looks like a mike, and then he hits the button that logically seems to be for transmitting.

“Not yet, anyway,” he muses aloud. Down the hall, he hears something like a snarl. He’s not sure if it’s from Khan or the Klingon lady, but either way, it sounds pretty damn scary.

Kirk is honestly not sure if the cage will hold Khan.

Plus, he has eighty plus hours to kill and there’s no digital entertainment.

He could go crack jokes at the Klingon lady. Hah. That’d be funny. He’s never gotten to do that before.

Or, he wagers, he could have epic amounts of rough sex. Because Jesus Christ Khan is hot. And not normal hot. Like, dirty, the-kamasutra-is-my-bitch, and I-am-hung-like-a-horse kind of hot. He’s freaking _dangerous_ and well, Kirk squirms just thinking about it.

So, right, was there ever a contest? Kirk finds the case of syringes right where he left it in the pack. He slides the pink one out, examining the fluid inside. Compared to the oily nature of the red vials, the pink seems thick, and the plastic sides of the tube seem expanded, like the substance has grown in the time its been inside its container.

“To boldy go…” Kirk hums as he presses the release on the hypo.

Staring at the pink point of entry on his arm, Kirk waits for a good long minute afterwards. But his hands don’t even swell. In fact, it seems like nothing’s happening until his stomach growls. Kirk realizes he’s _starving._

It takes him a few circuits of the ship to find the mess. There’s a food synthesizer with some less-than-appetizing-looking suggestions on the front menu, but in the end, using his UT, Kirk manages to get something that looks like pot roast out of it (If he’s using a Klingon synthesizer, he’s definitely sticking to meat items). Well, he eats that and then he wants a milk shake. There’s more negotiation with the synthesizer over that one (it makes him wonder if Klingons are lactose intolerant) and then he’s getting pretty good at getting food out of the thing, so he gets another pot roast for himself, an extra for Khan, and chooses a random extremely gross-looking option off the front so he can feed the lady of the ship.

Kirk slides the grossness through the bars of the cage for her ladyship—who kicks the bowl as hard as she can.

Muck everywhere. 

Maybe Kirk chose wrong?

Anyway, he ignores her snarling to focus on Khan—who is just sitting there, watching Kirk with eyes that seem more black than blue. 

Kirk slides the bowl under the cage and says, “Pot roast?”

But Khan hasn’t so much as glanced at the food. His eyes are fixated on the pink dot on Kirk’s arm. (Weirdly, it hasn’t healed yet.) “You took it,” Khan says in a whisper.

“Yeah, but nothing much has happened yet.” Kirk sits down cross-legged with the bowl in its lap.

“You’re hungry,” Khan says, and the way he says it, his tone is, well, pretty damn hungry. 

“Really hungry,” Kirk agrees.

“Your body is attempting to reach the necessary nutrient threshold first.”

Ordinarily such a statement would give Kirk pause, but this pot roast might be the most delicious dish Kirk has ever eaten in his entire life so Khan’s comment sort of just bounces off. Kirk is already half way through his current bowl, and yet he’s thinking about cucumber salad and tomatoes. And he kind of wants liver and onions. 

“Be right back,” he says. Then he goes back to the synthesizer and orders up all of those things. He also chugs a huge jug of water and makes one disturbing trip to the bathroom (Talk about aggressive plumbing). 

He’s working on a bowl of “cherry mash” when the tingling starts.

Kirk checks his hands first.

Then his feet.

But the tingling is deeper than that. Kirk’s heart rate has been elevated since he took the first red syringe but now it seems to jump a bit. After a minute, he’s aware that sweat is dripping from his chin, and that his teeth are chattering.

Plus, the smell. This place reeks. It smells like mustard.

Why didn’t he smell that before?

Oh, but then there’s the other smell. It’s thick, almost solid, as if Kirk could bite it out of the air. Raising his head in the air, Kirk sucks in a breath. Then another. 

His feet are moving. So are his hands. He must be crawling.

Toward what? Kirk wonders but then finds out and he laughs.

Khan. 

The man is pressed against the bars of his cage and he’s making really nasty sounds. Kind of like a pissed off cat. Kirk almost wonders if he makes him wait long enough if he’ll start humping the bars.

Kirk is vaguely aware of the Klingon female saying, “ _Pahtak_ , open the door. Shut him up.”

Kirk is all ready to do exactly that except that his stomach lurches. With such force that Kirk drops to his knees and has to hold onto the wall for support.

The pain blooms as if someone has ripped his abdomen in two.

Across the room, Kirk is vaguely aware of Khan’s hands on the bars of the cage. He’s _bending_ them. The noise is piercing and yet Kirk hears it so distantly, like someone is drawing a note across violin strings. 

“This is so not what I thought the little pink vial would do.”

“I’m sorry,” is whispered above his lips, and Khan is right there. Icy eyes boring into Kirk’s. “I didn’t know,” he says.

“Thought you augments were gifted with ‘superior intellect,’” Kirk bites out, but Khan’s arms are hot in a super relaxing mineral spa kind of way. When Kirk buries his nose into his neck, the scent is pure heaven, and while the pain in Kirk’s lower abdomen is still there, now it’s more like a throbbing. Like a need.

“Now,” Kirk demands and he shoves Khan down onto the floor.

Khan immediately rolls them, getting Kirk underneath, and then he more or less rips open Kirk’s flight suit. 

Kirk liked that flight suit. A lot. 

He’s angry, he realizes. So he punches Khan.

Khan takes the blow on his cheek, and there’s a moment when he stares, a confused frown on his face, before he tries to catch Kirk’s hand.

Kirk twists his wrist and gets it so that he a grip on Khan’s hand instead. And then he take the hand and slides it down where we wants it. Between his legs. Past his balls. To the place where the throbbing is the most intense.

Above him, Khan releases a shuddering breath, and then Khan is pushing in with one finger while trying to get fabric out of the way with the other. And Kirk is canting his hips up. Somehow they’re up against the wall in the command room—not sure how that happened—and yeah, Kirk decided he hates his flight suit too.

He shoves Khan away to push it off, and then he’s ripping at the man’s pants. 

Kirk has just finally succeeded in getting him out when Khan flips him around and slams him up against the wall.

“First time fast,” Khan says, and Kirk feels the press of the head—there. 

If the throbbing was bad before, it’s straight up bone-crushing now. Kirk has been making noises worse than a two-year old banging on a piano for the past minute, but he can’t help it. “Yes—just _yes_. Now, please and please.” Kirk is pleading. He’s pushing back against Khan, trying to get the right parts to align.

“Second time slow,” Khan says. He kisses beneath Kirk’s ear, and then he thrusts in.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um, definitely adding knotting as a warning... heh.

Kirk’s thought, some rounds later, is that it’s a good thing this happened on a Klingon cruiser. The furniture is sturdier. Even still, the first object to break is the captain’s chair. But that’s only after Kirk takes a phaser on Khan (set to stun obviously) and shoots him... at least three times.

After the first shot, Khan frowns at Kirk in disbelief. “You _shot_ me.”

“And nothing happened,” Kirk complains. He gives the phaser a shake, like that will help. “And I wouldn’t have to shoot you if you’d let _me_ do what I wanted to do.”

Khan’s eyes take on that predatory look. The one that makes Kirk shiver—it’s the look that has already made him give in the past two times. “I still want you too much,” Khan says.

Which makes Kirk shiver again, but is also definitely not the right answer. So Kirk shoots him.

Khan does not fall to the floor. Instead, he bodily launches himself at Kirk.

Who shoots him a third time.

Third time is the charm. Khan grinds his teeth like he’s trying to withstand the pain—and then he collapses.

Feeling an insane sense of glee, Kirk drags Khan to the command room, where he uses electrical tape—lots of it—to get Khan’s arms fastened to the captain’s chair. He’s not sure how much time he has. But he’s been wanting to do this pretty much since he realized that Khan’s dick came with an upgrade. So after he has Khan mummied-up in the captain’s chair—spread eagle so he can _see_ —Kirk finally has a real look.

And it is as Kirk thought, Khan’s equipment comes with an expansion pack. At the base.

“So that is the freaking washer that’s been holding the screw in,” Kirk mutters aloud—only to snap his mouth shut when Khan stirs. Kirk really doesn’t have as much time as he would like.

But he kind of forgets that when he catches the smell. Which— _merph, honey musk_ —causes the super lust to start up again. Well, and then Kirk needs to taste, so his tongue is there, testing itself on the silky spots, rubbing harder on the rougher, more crinkled areas, and then well, he wants to see how it all fits inside, so he open wide. Sucks hard. He’s got most of the tube in his mouth when he realizes that Khan’s eyes are open and gazing down at him.

It means Kirk is pretty much out of time because Khan merely _flexes_ and the electrical tape starts to snap and the frayed silver strands tickle Kirk’s face as he moves up and down. It’s all he can do to move faster. And God, there’s slobber on his chin. He’s being purposefully noisy.

Khan is dead silent until the last bit of tape pops. Then he wrests Kirk off of the floor and onto his lap. “And what about you?” Khan asks.

And maybe the super lust is causing his whole body to feel like a volcano on the brink but Kirk has a _mission_. “Don’t care,” he says. “Let me win.”

“Win?” Khan’s smile is crooked. His hands are running up and down Kirk’s back. The pressure feels as soothing as it does enticing.

“You’re always on top—and I like it but I wanted...” Kirk can’t even finish the sentence because Khan’s fingers have wrapped around his dick. The grip is sticky, firm, and extremely distracting.

“There’s such a thing as win-win,” Khan says coolly, and like it’s easy as pie, he flips Kirk around and pushes him onto the floor.

Kirk has only just realized that Khan’s super cock is back near his mouth when he feels a hot and moist _pull_ on his own.

“Okay, win-win.” Kirk nods in agreement before launching his counterattack with his tongue.

It’s when Kirk comes that he kicks captains chair. It breaks with a shriek.

\- - -

He’s vaguely aware of waking up across from the Klingon female in her cell. She has a bowl of… something puce… in her hands and she’s eating while wearing a smile that can only be described as _amused_.

“Ah, you are awake.” She smiles around the spoon in her mouth.

“Where’s Khan?” Kirk grumbles as he looks up and down the hallway. Given the way his body feels, it’s kind of disturbing that he still wants sex.

“That is a worthy man. Strong.” The female nods approvingly at the bent bars of the next cell before leaning in. “I will fight you for him.” There is absolute bloodlust in her eyes. Or possibly, mostly lust. Either way, Kirk is way too messed up for this.

“Um, what?”

“I am G’Zel, House of Zwokog’r. I challenge you for your mate. _Qab jIH nagil_.”

“No. He’s mine.” He’s aware that he sounds more like a petulant tween than the former captain of the Federation’s flagship, but _seriously_.

“You have not announced your alliance to your kin. There is no honor in denying my challenge.”

“It’s not about honor. I’m pretty sure you just want out of your jail cell.”

G’Zel releases a roar that drums on the walls and then she starts in on what is a pretty epic tantrum. Kirk is kind of enjoying the primer on Klingon swearing when Khan comes down the hallway. He’s wearing what looks to be a Klingon uniform of some kind, and despite the fact that he’s more lean than bulked up, it looks pretty freaking smoking. G’Zel must thinks so too because she cuts herself off to smile at Khan in what is assumedly an alluring way.

“G’zel,” Khan says in what is near-perfect Klingon. “He has my blood in his veins. It has made him into _my blood_. So if you so dare as challenge my _jIH dok_ , I will not end you in graceful battle. I will drop you in a space like a raindrop in a puddle where you shall float endlessly.”

G’zel gives an approving humph at the threat and smiles. “I would have you sing again.”

Kirk looks up at him. “You _sang_?”

Khan frowns. “I was singing to you while you slept. She overheard.”

Kirk’s translator buzzes in confusion when G’Zel decides to demonstrate. In perfect pitch, she sings, “ _Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma! Tu pure, o Principessa, nella tua fredda stanza, guardi le stelle che tremano d'amore—_ ” By the end, his UT just starts beeping. Because a Klingon singing opera in an archaic Terran language is just too much for Kirk’s technology apparently. It’s also too much for Kirk so he stumbles down the hall trying to find someplace sane.

It’s not surprising when Khan is behind him, breathing on his neck. “This way. There’s a bed.”

“You need to stop wooing our prisoner. She’s got a serious cross-species crush,” Kirk says, but he’s pulling Khan in closer, taking backward steps until his heels bang against furniture.

“Just you,” Khan says, and he pushes Kirk down onto something that feels like a bundle of straw covered with scratchy wool. Except that then Khan’s weight is bearing down on him. Kirk’s vision is doing that ebb-in-and-out thing. Luckily, shucking clothes has become second nature.

“What day is it?” Kirk breathes as Khan slides in.

“We arrived at our location 40 hours ago. It’s eve of the sixth day of my heat.” Khan brushes his thumbs down the sides of Kirk’s face. The kiss he presses against Kirk’s lips is so soft. “It’s fading for me now. It will be over for you by tomorrow.”

“Don’t want it to be,” Kirk says, and then clings to Khan. Unlike their previous times, he doesn’t try to take control—change the angle—throw a punch. No, he holds Khan so tightly that he must be hurting him. Causing bruises at the very least.

He’s vaguely aware of Khan answering him, saying something like, “It doesn’t have to,” but then—right as they’re at the end—pretty much the second after Khan has come—and they are _locked_ as in Khan has his superman dick inflated up Kirk’s ass like a beach ball—that the alarms go off.

“Oh, bugger,” Khan says.

“Um, yes,” Kirk agrees. Because he is literally buggered at the point. “We’re not going to have to bum-crawl to the bridge are we? Because if they come at us with full visual...”

Khan thankfully has a better idea. He speaks aloud in Klingon and Kirk’s pretty damn happy when his UT translates: _shields up, audio channels open._

It’s Pike’s voice who is suddenly loud over the speaker. “You are an unmarked Klingon vessel in Federation space—state your cause and identify yourself immediately.”

Khan opens his mouth, but Kirk clamps his hand over his lips. He holds up a finger. Then Kirk presses the button on the Klingon comm unit. “Jesus, Pike, give me five minutes, okay? Like a full five. Not four. Not three. I need _five_.”

There’s a moment of silence before the startled reply, “ _Kirk_?”

“ _Five,_ then I’ll be on the bridge and whatever,” Kirk says testily before slumping down and grabbing for Khan’s arm—which he wraps greedily around him.

He’s not sure the Enterprise has ever been more annoying than at this moment.

“I’m not sure five minutes will be enough.” Khan’s voice is deep and way more alert than Kirk’s.

Kirk is honestly not sure if Khan is talking about their current state of attachment—or the fact that Kirk probably still has another day of heat—or the fact that the Enterprise likely has a search and destroy mission for Khan. Either way, he’s never felt crankier in his entire life. “If you move, I’ll kill you,” Kirk promises.

“It’s my crew, the ones that survived the century-long cryogenic stasis. Marcus used them as leverage to force my assistance. I helped him build a ship capable of taking on the Klingons but I also tried to free my crew. I hid them in missiles. Marcus found out and I had to flee. He murdered them in retaliation.”

Kirk processes the words even though his brain really doesn’t want to. “So now you want revenge or what? The crew on the Enterprise might be Starfleet—but they’re mine. They’re not Marcus.”

“That’s not why I’m telling you.” Khan shifts, and Kirk senses the loosening between them.

“Then why are you telling me?” Kirk says tiredly.

“Because you need to know—you’re all I have left.” And then he bites down on Kirk’s neck, nipping hard enough to leave a mark.

Kirk leans back into it. God, his whole body is already heating up again—which is so not a good idea. Regardless, when they’re finally lose enough for it, Kirk flips around so that Khan slides out. Then he bites Khan back. “This is going to all work out,” he says.

\- - -

Khan had said it was important for them to know he was alive. Alive, yes, but...

Kirk looks down at the brown Klingon jumpsuit he’s wearing—then around the room at the broken captain’s seat and the seriously dented nav panel. Down the hall, G’zel is singing a Romulan piece about gutting goats. There is no way the Enterprise—especially with Pike as the commander—is going to think they shouldn’t storm the ship.

“Kirk to Enterprise,” Kirk spits out, and as much as he hates to do it, he hits the video channel as well.

He finds himself staring at Pike, Sulu, Chekov, Bones, Uhura, even Scotty—and then, oh, Spock.

“Surprise,” Kirk says, and tries to not sound as pissed off as he feels.

For a minute they all just stare and then they all speak at once. “Kirk, what’s your status?” Pike says at the same time that Bones barks, “Sick bay, now!” and Uhura, looking amused, asks, “Is someone singing ‘The Animal Man?’” She’s standing on tiptoe as if she’s trying to see past Kirk down the hall. It’s Spock who asks, “Do you know the whereabouts of Khan Noonien Singh?”

Kirk wipes at his forehead. “Why is _Spock_ on the Enterprise?”

“Upon your sudden disappearance, I requested a transfer so as to be an active participant in your search and rescue.”

“I’m fine,” Kirk says, although in his head, he mentally corrects, just really really horny. “We were going to head back after...”

Kirk is definitely not finishing that sentence.

“We?” Pike is giving him a ‘fess up’ look.

“Did Marcus send you? And is Carol on board?” And Christ on a cracker, the throbbing is back. Kirk clutches onto the counter.

“Our current Science Officer has the given name of Carol,” Spock informs him.

“Excuse me, captain.” It’s Scotty this time. “It’s just that you’re looking a touch peaky, Sir.”

“Sick Bay,” Bones growls again. His hand wiggles in his pocket like he’s got at least two syringes stashed in there.

“I’m _fine_. Just make Carol tell you what she told me.” Kirk tries to stand but his arm is trembling too much.

Pike’s face is full of alarm. “Kirk, lower your shields. We’ll beam you out.”

“Whatever you do—don’t do that,” Kirk says. “I just need...” He stumbles and the next thing he knows Khan is in the room, scooping him up.

Khan is not supposed to be in the room.

Because now the crew on the Enterprise is going to go ape shit.

“Drink this,” Khan says, pushing a bottle of water at him.

In the background, Kirk hears a chorus of, “Don’t drink that!”

But whatever, Khan is here, and Kirk’s heart feels like it’s in his brain—pumping and beating and generally not caring that he wants to have his way with the man in full sight of his crew. Except they’re being very noisy with all the yelling.

In fact, there’s a static crackle in the air. “They’re trying to beam me over. That’s so annoying,” Kirk says.

“I have the jammers up,” Khan says, and it’s directed not just at Kirk but at the bridge of the Enterprise.

“He needs medical attention.” Bones looks ready to fucking kill Khan. Not a good first impression.

“Yeah, Bones, you can come over,” Jim says. “Just give me fifteen—no... like twenty—alright?” Without waiting for a response, Jim stands, grabs Khan by the sleeve and more or less yanks him down the hall.

\- - -

Kirk is vaguely aware of Bones being at his side. Bones never sounds happy, but at the moment he sounds particularly enraged. “You gave him _what_?”

Khan frowns. “He made the decision to take it himself. Also, you must allow for the circumstances. I never intended for him to come with me. I had not accounted for my heat. And we found ourselves in a hostile environment and had to make use of spare resources.”

“I tried the red ones first. Liked them. Was bored. Took the pink one,” Jim says blearily. “And be nice to Khan, Bones.”

“Dammit, Jim, he gave you mutagenic blood.” Bones look genuinely upset.

“I know. It was hot.” Jim is smirking. He’s also looking at Khan again, who is sitting in the corner of the room with crossed arms and eyes aimed like arrows. Jesus, could he look more imperial?

Khan rolls his eyes at Kirk’s comment before straightening with perfect posture. “Dr. McCoy, can you verify the effects of the serum?”

“Could you leave?” Bones is wearing his doctor bitch-face.

Khan does not want to leave. The look he gives Kirk says as much, but when Kirk nods, Khan gives a single nod in return and exits. Kirk is pretty sure he is near the end of his heat—but the breath still goes out of his chest as the door closes.

Bones doesn't actually say anything for a long minute as he conducts the scan, though Kirk can feel the fury radiating off of him. Kirk is about to say something when Bones freezes. The scanner is directly over Kirk’s abdomen. Bones' mouth has fallen open and his lips are moving soundlessly.

“If you tell me I have a space baby in there—I’m going to—” Kirk threatens with his fist.

That causes Bones to glare at him. “No, it’s just that you’re healed—which I’m actually not surprised by—I’d read accounts of Augment blood...”

When Bones doesn't look up from the scanner, Kirk says, “Knock-knock."

“And your organs have rearranged themselves. Plus...” Bones takes a hypo out of his pocket and jabs it into Kirk’s arm.

“Not necessary!” Kirk complains, rubbing at the spot.

“So it’s okay for _you_ to self-medicate with experimental substances, but when I, a trained Starfleet doctor, do an experiment—it’s suddenly not okay?

“You jab way harder than you need to!” Kirk protests.

“And it’s not swelling. And the wound site had already healed.” Bones stares down at his scanner. “Dammit, that was fast.”

“What did you give me?”

“Basic Penicillin.”

Kirk frowns. “I’m allergic to that.”

“Not anymore.” And then Bones doesn’t waste a second before launching into his lecture. “You have always had the worst taste in sexual partners, but seriously, Jim, if this doesn’t take _all_.”

Jim gives Bones a comforting pat on the hand. “I’m fine, you know. This isn’t like the time I got myself stuck in Rexocentra’s tentacle party. It’s just a heat. I’m a little frisky. No biggie.” He grins and shrugs but Bones doesn’t smile back.

“He’s an Augment—and now you’re a... There are Federation codes against genetic engineering for this very reason. Which—Jim—you realize your latest little boyfriend down the hall ruled a quarter of the earth at one point?”

Kirk suppresses the urge to comment on the relative hotness of this fact. “I hadn’t gotten around to reading a history book yet...”

“He was a _tyrant_.”

Kirk wants to pop the pressure balloon in the room and say something like “But he sang opera to a Klingon,” but Bones cares about Kirk. Like, a lot. And Bones doesn’t know Khan, though if Kirk was being logical about this he would be forced to admit that even he doesn’t know Khan that well. They’ve spent one night on earth, a couple of days on Kronos, and the last week on this ship... during which they were kind of, well, out of their minds.

Still, Kirk feels like he gets Khan. The mere suggestion that Khan could hurt him feels wrong deep down. A flat out lie. And that’s not just the heat talking. Kirk has always been one to trust his instincts, and there’s no way he’s not going to trust Khan now.

“He’s not what you think,” Kirk says at last.

Bones arches a skeptical brow. “Pike has orders to place him under arrest.”

“No,” Kirk snaps. “Because I’m pretty damn sure those orders are from Marcus—who is dead set on starting a war with the Klingons.”

“You realize you're talking about the admiral?” Bones says tiredly.

“Yep—anyway, so I’m otherwise healthy?”

“I need to get you back to the Enterprise so I can do a proper physical,” Bones says in a stern voice, but Kirk can tell Bones’ moods. His best friend has gone from terrified-out-of-his mind to grumpily-worried, which is his default state anyway.

“Comm them and tell them that I’m okay,” Kirk urges.

“Hold your horses,” Bones snaps, and his finger is about to push the button when there is a clatter from down the hall.

Both Kirk and Bones look at each other, and then they bolt out of the room.

Then Kirk’s first reaction upon seeing Khan surrounded by Enterprise crew is not actually to protect Khan. Khan can handle himself. Instead, Kirk yells, “Khan, don’t kill everyone! I like them—well, most of them.” He glares in Spock’s direction and he avoids looking Uhura in the eye.

Khan doesn’t so much as flinch. “First Officer Spock and I were negotiating my surrender.”

Spock’s eyes flit toward Bones. “Have you ascertained whether or not Officer Kirk’s mental state is back to its rational functioning?”

“Oh, he’s _functioning_ , all right,” Bones grumbles.

“I will have to stun you,” Spock says, and he’s pointing a phaser right at Khan. “Given your superior physical capabilities, I cannot risk you overcoming a crewmember and threatening the ship.”

Khan shrugs. “Get on with it.”

Spock shoots Khan, and Khan crumples.

Kirk is waiting for the second and third shots, but they never come.

Oh, Khan is playing dead. And Spock doesn’t know better.

Sure enough, as the Enterprise’s crew prepares him for transport, Khan gives Kirk what is unmistakably a goddamn _wink_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, so this got a bit campier than I meant it to be (but then again, COME ON, Trek is definitionly campy) and I took some liberties with Klingon stuff (okay a lot of liberties) but I promise we're not jumping the shark here.

Khan immediately judges Admiral Pike to be a worthy individual. But he loathes the Vulcan. And it’s not just because Elf Ears got Jim demoted. It is because he is not even a full Vulcan. He’s half human—which means he should know _better_.

“What was your intent in travelling to Kronos?” Spock’s voice sounds worse than a computer from the 1980’s.

Khan is in one of the Enterprises’s holding cells. Besides Spock and Pike, there are two security personnel and a wide-eyed redhead who keeps casting him furtive looks over the top of her PADD. There are no bars to this sleek cage, but rather a laser-projected shield wall determines which pulses with red static at the slightest change in air. It must be working on some sort of anti-matter matrix, but Khan isn’t entirely if it’s an entirely new technology or what. Marcus had requested no such holding cells on the _Vengeance_. Khan thinks that says a great deal about Marcus’s plans.

“Maybe I wanted to help the Klingons…” Khan just throws it out there even though he knows that neither Spock nor Pike will buy it.

“Illogical. Your Terran ancestry would preclude such an alliance. Moreover, the Klingons would be unwilling to help you in your quest for power.”

“Quest for power?” Khan actually raises his brows over that one.

“You once ruled over approximately a quarter of the planet earth,” Spock says. “Your motives are unlikely to change in the approximately ten-month time period since you awakened from cryogenic stasis.”

“You’re missing facts, First Officer.” Khan slumps back on the counter, before turning to Pike. “The shields on the doors. They’re an anti-matter matrix or is the technology dimensional?”

“We’re not going to help you escape,” Pike says with an amused smile.

“It’s not about that. I’m simply curious. It _has_ to be an anti-matter matrix, but then there must be a coating of some kind.”

“That’s pretty much it,” a new voice says. It’s the redhead. She’s looking at Khan with owl eyes. Her face is nearly the same shade as her hair.

“It’s fascinating.” Khan reaches out to touch the red barrier. It sizzles threateningly across his fingertips but doesn’t cause him any pain. If he pushed, he’s certain that the barrier would push back. “And no, I have no desire to ally myself with the Klingons. However, I was under pursuit by a man—your chum, Marcus—who was still attempting to maintain the guise of secrecy. Kronos was, as I told Kirk, the most tactically advantageous destination. When being pursued by a panther, it’s not enough to _run_ , for he has the trees and you have skinny legs. Better to bring him into the dark to the den of a bear—and you will not only free yourself, you will rid yourself of at least one enemy. If the timing is right—two.” Khan makes an x over the barrier and it crackles like bacon tossed into the fryer.

“You have accused Marcus of the massacre of your crew. Why have you not sought revenge?” Spock asks.

That statement hits a little too close to home. The simple answer is, “Kirk,” but Khan is not going to admit that.

Instead the redhead speaks up again. “He wasn't like the other Augments. There was no genocide in his territory. There were no unprovoked wars. Also, the scientists creating the Augments conducted different trials. His coding was…” Now her cheeks are burning even brighter than her hair. “…different.”

Goodness, what a pervy little strumpet. Khan should check the database. Just what sort of drivel is populating the historical romance section these days? 

But back to the situation at hand…

Khan has to fight down the smirk as he says, “That’s right. I’m _different_.”

“Lieutenant McGivers, your defense is unnecessary,” Pike says with the look of a beleaguered father.

But Spock interrupts. “Executions were the norm during your rule. Class stratification and restricted freedoms were common.”

Right, Klia and her temper. Like the time that the former Canadian president had made the mistake of wearing red silk on the Klia’s birthday. Apparently, the deposed politician had not read the memo (which listed twenty-eight stipulations to ensure one’s safety) that Khan’s assistant had sent out. Klia had cleaved the poor woman in two and then smashed her double-tier birthday cake over the woman’s corpse. It had all been rather shitty.

But then it had given Ershad Peters a reason to attack their northern Himalayan border. And since pitiable Ershad was asking for a coupe d’état like a pop quiz…

Of course, Spock wouldn’t have any conception of such things, so Khan folds his hands in his lap. “My dear Vulcan,” he says with no small amount of condescension, “It might be true to say that I’m superiorly gifted with intellect and strength, but it would be _unwise_ to say that I could be perfect. That I am not.”

Khan notes with satisfaction that the tips of the Vulcan’s brighten like clover, but it’s Pike who steps in. “Just tell us what you’re after, Khan.”

The man is just so bleeding _earnest_ , and there’s no reason (other than irritating the Vulcan) for Khan not to state his aims. “I would like to be of assistance to Jim Kirk. In our short time together, he has been…” _Dear_ is the word, but instead Khan says, “a worthy companion to me. Additionally, I would be just a little tickled to see Marcus’s head on a pike.”

“Because of the bodies in the missiles,” Pike says, and there is that disconcerting _compassion_ in his voice.

“Yes,” Khan’s reply is quieter than he means for it to be. Where the hell is Kirk on this giant floating boat?

Pike is looking down when he says, “So what if I were to tell you that the missiles were still intact?”

Khan’s head shoots up. The air goes out of his chest. “Don’t fuck with me,” he says.

But then the red field crackles as Kirk steps into the room. “Khan, they’re stacked in Engineering,” he says. “I counted them. Seventy-two.”

He wants to run to them. He wants rip open the covers and search them—verify. But he meets Kirk’s gaze and keeping their gazes locked, Khan makes himself say, “ _Why_ do you have them?” Khan directs the question at Pike. 

“After you and Kirk skipped town, you went to Kronos—the Klingon home world. Marcus testified to Starfleet council that you were a spy. You killed the Starfleet agent who tried to apprehend you. We didn’t know until his daughter spoke up—”

But Khan has stopped listening as his mind has leaped forward with the math. He grabs his temples and then slams down his fist as he realizes what this means. “Raise your shields. Raise them yesterday.”

But it’s too too late. The alarms have already started to blare.

“Not Marcus?” Pike asks in disbelief.

“Keep up, admiral. Why risk your horse when you can sic the hounds?” Khan says.

Spock announces from his PADD. “Klingon ships have entered at the star system’s edge—five and counting.”

“This is it. This is the start of the war.” Kirk, at least, realizes what is happening. “His daughter is on this ship. Carol was using her mother’s name, Wallace. He can’t know that.”

“He doesn’t,” Pike answers. 

“We shall request that Lieutenant Marcus transmits a message to her father. Possibly hastening his support—though, it may hasten war. However, in the meantime, the admiral and I must be on the bridge.”

“I’ll find Carol,” Kirk says, when Pike gives him a questioning look.

Pike and Spock march out, headed for the bridge, but Kirk is here with him. There are also the guards and the goggle-eyed redhead, but they’re easily ignored. Now, Khan needs to get them out of here. He turns to Kirk. “It’s so very clean. Marcus gets rid of me. He gets rid of you. I bet he loathes Pike’s pacifism. You have to give the man credit, the chess game has just started and he’s already said ‘check.’”

“Except for his daughter,” Kirk says.

“Agreed. Though, you’re forgetting the other queen.”

When Kirk frowns, Khan takes his PADD from him (even as the guards flinch) and pulls up the page for G’Zel House of Zwokog’r. 

Kirk’s eyes narrow. “What. Is she secretly the Klingon equivalent of a Princess or something?”

“Better.” Khan eyes point down, urging Kirk to keep reading.

When Kirk snorts, he knows he’s read far enough. “Uh, we already knew she liked to sing.”

“She is their best opera singer. The best.”

“Really?” Kirk’s face shows a sinking belief in Klingon aesthetics.

“Indeed. Now don’t be mad,” Khan says. And then he disarms the first guard and stuns the second. 

“My crew!” Kirk snatches the phaser out of his hand. “What do you not get about that? Seriously, Khan.” To demonstrate his resolve, Kirk slams Khan up against the wall. 

Which is not the best idea. Because Kirk might be free of the effects of heat, but he still smells fabulous. The way his rigid thighs press into Khan’s is a terrible distraction. That’s why it takes all of his self control to say, “No one is dead or permanently dismembered. And McGivers won’t tell, will you, doll?”

McGivers is fanning herself in the corner. At Khan’s question, she nods, smiling with all her teeth.

Khan smiles innocently at Kirk, who doesn't look all that impressed. “Now, Jim, if you would... Be old fashioned and hold the door for me?”

\- - -

Khan has the worst plans. Well, maybe not the worst, just the scariest.

“There’s a war outside and you want to _open the missile with your son?_ ” They are flat out running down the hallway. 

“We’re going to Engineering. Carol is in Engineering and so is he. It won’t take but a minute,” Khan says with certainty. Then he completely bypasses the ladder to jump down to the next floor.

Kirk is less certain. In fact, dealing with Khan is already like attempting to lead an elephant around by its trunk. He is not sure he wants to find out how dealing with his _son_ will be. Plus, it’s kind of weird that Khan even has a son. Khan looks five years older than Kirk does—at best. He can’t be over forty. Well, likely not. Who knows with the whole super genes and crap? And there’s also the possibility that said son won’t like Kirk. It’s pretty what-the-fuck, you know? “There are seventy-two missiles. There’s no way to know which one is Ash,” Kirk points out.

“I’m the one who put him in the missile—do you seriously think I wouldn't _label_ them? He’s AX-187.”

They find AX-187 in the back. They also find Carol Marcus holding a phaser. Her hands are shaking.

“Oh, Carol,” Kirk says with a wave. “We were looking for you. Pike asked that you send out a transmission to your dad, letting him know that the Klingons were coming for a _ship_ that you were on.”

“I already got Admiral Pike’s message and completed my orders. He also said that I should stop _him_ if he showed up.” Carol’s eyes are fixed on Khan.

“Please move,” Khan says brusquely. 

“You’re not taking this ship,” she says.

“Khan is not taking the Enterprise,” Kirk says, before pausing and turning to Khan. “Wait—you’d better not be.”

“The Klingon ship is far preferable,” Khan says impatiently. “Carol, if you would...”

“I can’t trust you,” she says through gritted teeth, and when Khan takes a step forward, she aims at him. “It’s set to kill.”

Kirk can see that. He can also see that the phasor still has the safety on, so he just clamps his hands over his eyes as Khan wrests the weapon from her hands, tosses it over his shoulder—Kirk hears a loud clang as it bounced off one of the nacelle pylons—and sets about opening the core of AX-187.

“Stop him!” Carol screams at Kirk.

“He’s separating his son from a torpedo,” Kirk says as a defense. And like, it’s a pretty decent defense, really.

“They are _Augments._ ”

“You mean really smart and strong people. Kind of like you—and me. Why don’t I get a nano-syringe and alter the genetic structure of your cranial calcium channels—then you could be a monkey and perfectly just in your arguments? Oh, wait.” 

“We’re under attack by the Klingons!”

“Because of your dad.” 

“No, it’s because you—who just happens to be the poster boy of the Federation—and the Hulk over there took a honeymoon to Kronos. And then what did you do? You shot up their secret base and stole a Klingon vessel.”

“That is so not how this happened! Your dad held Khan’s crew hostage. And it wasn’t like I woke up that morning and decided to go outbacking on enemy territory. A fucking assassin showed up in the middle of our foreplay.”

“Who died!”

“Um, it’s kind of self-defense when someone breaks into your house and aims a gun at you? And then there were hormones. Lots of hormones. And running—and then how was I supposed to know that Klingons bury their ships? Nobody knows that!”

Carol sucks in a breath, and looks like she’s ready to spit fire until her eyes widen. She’s looking over Kirk’s shoulder. “Your Augment got the missile open.” 

Kirk turns around just in time to hear a grinding of gears, and then a dry hacking sound. He runs over to be next to Khan.

Ash—Khan’s son—is already sitting up. He’s not what Kirk expected. For starters, he’s older. Kirk would put his age around sixteen-seventeen, maybe? It’s hard to tell. Long, wire-thin braids are collected into a black bundle at the back of his neck. His skin is a perfect tawny in contrast to the bright blue cartoon t-shirt that he’s wearing. While there’s some resemblance in jaw and cheekbones, Ash’s eyes are nothing like his father’s. They’re a soft hazel that seems even more relaxed when he smiles—which he does first thing. 

“Hey, dad-o,” Ash says, before the blinking stops. “We make it?”

“We’re not dead,” Khan says, but his voice is soft.

Ash’s gaze leaves Khan to jerk to Kirk. Then the brat _whistles_. “Who’s the hot guy?” 

“Ash, the year is 2259,” Khan says.

“Yeah, no wonder the brain freeze.” Ash puffs out his cheeks, leaning forward onto his fist.

“How are you feeling?” Khan demands.

This is the moment when Carol steps into view, staring at Ash with wide eyes. Ash turns to Khan with a hopeful look on his face. “Oh, shwang. Do I still get foxy chicks for birthday presents?”

“Ash,” Khan says flatly.

“Hehehe,” Ash chuckles. “Just kidding.” He waves at Carol who crosses her arms and glares back. 

“We need to get moving,” Khan says.

“Ugh—you’re like plotting something, aren’t you?” But Ash lets Khan lift his knees over the side of the missile so he can push himself out.

“It’s not so bad. You might even be able to help. We need to charm an alien.”

Ash’s face brightens. “Rock—the fuck—on. Aliens?”

Carol sniffs derisively.

\- - -

It’s only Chekov in the transport room. Kirk tells him to get out, and Chekov protests with a, “Yes, Captain, but—!”

“Out.”

“Erm.” He points at Khan.

“Move.” 

“I think—” Chekov gives a confused look at Carol Marcus who marches up onto the platform.

“I will drag you,” Kirk threatens.

“Captain, you are not cleared—”

“I’m trying to stop an all out war with the Klingons. If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s me,” Kirk says.

“True, but...”

“Tell the commander I stunned you.” Khan steps up besides Carol and Ash. “Though I didn’t actually,” he adds, smiling at Kirk.

“Well, okay.” Chekov shrugs agreeably and starts up the process. 

Kirk steps onto his own target and then in the next second, he’s back in the Klingon ship. 

There is only one person from the Enterprise on the ship. Uhura. She’s sitting in front of G’Zel’s cell. They are holdings hands through the bars.

“Whoa, hotness.” Ash is looking between Uhura and G’Zel with permanently raised eyebrows.

Uhura, at their footsteps, looks up in anger. “Why is she _caged_? She is not a beast.”

Kirk feels it’s his duty to answer this. “Because Khan put her there, and then she wanted to fight me to the death over him. Oh, and maybe because we’re at _war_ with the freaking Klingons.”

“Her honor is great. You shame her by these bars.” And then Uhura epically sneers at them.

“So you’re saying we should just let her out fancy free?” Kirk can’t help the accompanying finger wiggle.

G’zel is the one who answers. “Uhura has been telling me of the _DavHam_ , Marcus, and his will to fight. But he fights without the will of your Houses—this is...” G’zel’s face screws up and she spits out a few of her favorite curses.

“So, if I inferred correctly, we can just disown Marcus and the Klingons will squash him like a bug?” Kirk asks.

Uhura rolls her eyes. “Do you have no cultural sensitivity? G’zel wishes to restore the balance of honor for her people. That means dealing with the...” She waves a hand at Khan, before frowning at Ash. “And handling Marcus.”

G’Zel stands. “With all honor, I drop my weapons. I open my neck to your blade until together we cross this canyon.”

“Aliens are so poetical.” Ash nods approvingly.

In Klingon, Uhura answers, “That my blood shall be the bridge for us both.” Then she bends her head forward to meet G’Zel’s. Their foreheads touch, and then with a smile, Uhura opens the cell door.

Kirk impulsively steps closer to Khan as G’Zel emerges, flexing her shoulder muscles and smiling like a cat that stole the whole milk jug.

“Now,” she says. “Open all channels. I shall call upon every last House.”

“She’s going to sing again, isn't she?” Kirk sighs.

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter won't be until ~~Monday~~ Tuesday because this weekend is crazy busy. However, then it shall be. :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some violence--but it's pretty stylized? But there's a lot of fighting with phasors knives singing ~~sex~~.

Khan isn’t looking for a magical path to peace. These are Klingons, after all—Klingons who know perfectly well that the deck is stacked in their favor. Between Nero’s decimation of the Vulcan home world and the hundreds of officers lost in the preemptive battle, Klingon hegemony has spread like a weed in fertile soil. They've taken control of two planets in their sector. Besides the technologies wrested from those civilizations, their expansion has coincided with a rapid increase in high-powered weaponry which is only fully explained by exchanges with the Romulans, whatever the Empire might claim about its “neutrality.”

Khan has studied the Klingons inside and out. It wasn’t as if Khan had a choice in the matter. Marcus had Khan’s crew and if Khan wanted them back, he had to hand over the keys to a victorious war. So Khan learned the Klingon tongue. He dissected their technology and stuck his fingers between the ribs to get at the heart. He listened to their songs so that he could know their hopes and dreams and chart the flow of their blood. Then he listened to their coded transmissions and broke them.

At the end, he gave Marcus not just the keys, but the doors, the hallways, the throne room, the whole damn palace. The bloody fucking crown to twirl on his finger. Because men with scepters ignore the jesters. Surrounded by such much sparkle, it’s so easy to forget that the smiling man juggling the knives can also _throw_ them. It’s how Khan has taken out most of his adversaries.

With Marcus, Khan’s plan had been so close to working. In fact, as he looks at Ash standing beside him, he supposes that it has, in the most important way. But then he looks at Kirk, who is scowling, and his heart aches. 

However amusing it might be to watch Kirk’s face as he listens, Khan knows it won’t be enough for G’Zel to sing. The Klingons love opera because it reminds them of war—not the opposite. It’s the real reason that Khan brought Ash here.

Oh, Ash.

Khan, as he always has, simply loves looking at his son. With the warmth in his skin, he looks so much like Klia in some ways, but then Klia was never so goddamn easy-going. In fact, it was a common conversation theme among the two of them. “How the fuck?” Klia used to like to say, right before insisting that Ash would ask to make the Caucus an organic commune on his 21st birthday.

Khan would shrug and then wager on Ash’s wanting to convert the entire island of Saint Helena into a harem.

If they had kept track, Khan was pretty sure that the pot on that bet was in the millions.

Of course, Klia was dead. Rather than sever an ounce of silk, Klia had fallen upon her own sword, not unlike a Klingon seeking honor.

But at least he had their son.

And Kirk.

The two younger men are standing side by side as they listen to G’zel sing at the star field. Kirk’s expression is mostly tormented. Those overly expressive blue eyes keep sliding to Khan’s, blatantly cringing when G’zel’s voice goes high. Ash, on the other hand, has a translator pressed to one ear and is bent toward G’zel. His eyes are closed, a smile softens his mouth, and he is swaying as he listens.

Uhura stands next to G’zel, one hand on the comm console and the other on her phasor. She looks ready to use it on _anyone_ who so dare interrupts.

Carol is perched over the nav panel. Deep lines marr her otherwise ivory-smooth forehead, and Khan is certain she's charting the most likely course her father will take while simultaneously wondering if he'll even come.

He will. Marcus is savage in a way that Khan could relate to. Carol is his only child. She is his pride, if less his joy. He would not leave her to death.

It is the moment that G’zel finishes that Khan steps forehead. He makes the ritual greeting—to the obvious surprise of the Klingon commander on screen—and then he says, “Now you may surrender.”

Both the outcry from G’zel as well as the growl from the Klingon captain and crew are as planned. Khan hears the expected jeering. Apparently, he is no better than a tiny lizard gecko. His tongue is made of oatmeal. His digestive exhaust is all methane and no spark.

Khan looks at his son. “Like I said, it’s time to charm a Klingon.” He takes the knife out of his pocket. He allows it to flip three times in the air before snatching it away.

“Ugh. You always pull this crap,” Ash complains, but he rips off his shirt and turns to Uhura. “Can I have that?” He points to her phasor.

Uhura seems unsure of where to direct her eyes in face of Ash’s eight pack.

“Wait—” Kirk grabs Khan’s arm. “Are you about to fight your _son_?”

“It’s a demonstration,” Khan says eyes floating to the screen, where the entire Klingon fleet is watching.

“A demonstration?” Kirk repeats acidly.

“There is only one true way to charm a Klingon,” Khan smiles at Kirk, though Kirk doesn’t seem all that swayed by it. “Please stand back.”

“You two are—ew—so definitely fucking.” Ash groans on the other side of the room. “And please don’t make me ever say that again.”

“The first move is yours,” Khan says, crouching down.

Ash nods, and then there’s the glorious transformation as the hippie is replaced by the soldier. Because even if Ash likes to joke that “he’s a lover, not a fighter,” there were always threats. From a young age, combat was the one lesson Ash took seriously. And it shows as he twists, firing the phasor in the first move and slicing a (hidden) dagger at his father’s knee in the second.

Khan finds himself laughing as he dodges.

How he missed his son.

\- - -

Okay, Kirk is torn between feeling deeply disturbed and being highly turned on. Because he’s never seen anything like this. Well, at least not in real life. Because the way Khan and Ash move, it’s like a fight choreographed out of a movie. And it’s not like Kirk hasn’t had his share of fights so he gets the sheer primal pleasure of just giving into pain, but just— _knives_ —man. Ash seems to have them planted all over his person, and flips them on his father without an ounce of hesitation. There’s an angry red line going down Khan’s bicep and it’s making Kirk a little crazy.

At least the phasor is gone. Maybe it was set to stun, but Khan has taken two shots before he slapped it out of Ash’s hands.

If this display weren’t working, Kirk would stop it, but when Khan completely kicks Ash in the face, sending him flying into the opposite wall, the Klingons on-screen give a notable cheer of approval. G’Zel in the corner is beating her fist like a drum.

Ash responds with another hidden knife—which Khan deflects with a piece of the captain’s chair. Then they’re back to kicks—another punch to the gut. Ash totally cheats and pulls his dad’s hair. Except that Khan jabs him in the eye. 

The fighting only stops when Khan snatches up one of the knives and wrestles Ash into an arm lock. Even with the metal edge against his throat, Ash still looks ready to counterattack, but he stills when Khan says, “Check.”

Through heavy breaths, Ash replies, “Not fair. I just woke up less than an hour ago.”

“A rematch later,” Khan agrees, and then he tosses the knife so that it skids to the opposite side of the bridge. Then he gives Ash a hand up. They brush themselves off in an obvious way. Khan wipes the blood off Ash’s cheek. With the violence they shared, their skin should be darkened with bruises, but Khan’s complexion is only slightly pink in a few spots. The cut on his side is healing before their eyes.

The commander on-screen says, “You do not fight like a human. You fight like a Klingon.”

“Better than a Klingon. And there are seventy-two more of us. You have reason to fear.”

The commander snorts. “Seventy-two fights are reason to anticipate—not fear.”

“Through us you shall know fear.”

“The Klingon empire grows with each second. Your games do not halt our blades.”

Staring at the screen, Khan says, “You’ve gained much in the past few years, but it has been through the Federation’s weakness. Not because of your honor or strength.”

Kirk knows that Khan’s trying to start something, but given the way that Klingon commander turns a violent shade of eggplant and gnashes his teeth, Kirk is slightly worried that Khan may have taken things a bit too far…

It’s not that surprising when the screen goes black and Carol announces, “They’re targeting weapons.”

Khan turns to him and says in a rush, “Find me a planet. Any Class L planet with a place where we can park. Lieutenant Uhura, please comm the Enterprise and tell them to _run_ to whatever planet Kirk selects.” And then he goes over to the transporter station and starts hitting buttons.

There’s no time to argue so Kirk scans nearby star systems. “100.19.87-mark-5,” he says aloud.

Uhura doesn’t look up from her station as she says, “I’m transmitting, but Pike has already said that you should follow _their_ coordinates. Also, that you’re still under arrest.” She frowns at Khan.

“Dude,” Ash says looking at his father with an open mouth.

Khan doesn’t pay him any attention. But then there is a sudden loud creaking from down the hallway, and Khan’s face looks up with a smile. “Done. Kirk, please send us out.”

Kirk starts plugging in the coordinates. “Please tell me there aren’t people-stuffed proton missiles stacked in the shuttle bay of this ship.”

“I had to use the hallway too,” Khan says with no apology in his voice.

That’s when the first missile rocks the ship.

They’re all grabbing onto consoles. Carol says, “Shields at 86%. Five more shots fired. The Enterprise is taking the brunt but…”

Ash looks freaked. Khan urges, “Any day now…?”

Kirk flips him the bird. “Sulu normally does this,” he says, before punching the throttle for warp.

\- - -

They have thirty-five minutes in warp. It’s not much time.

Kirk is staring at him, arms crossed. “So, what exactly is the plan?”

Khan isn’t going to tell Kirk everything in front of G’zel. “Lieutenant Uhura, if you would be so kind as to transmit a message to Starfleet—if you haven’t already.”

The look on Uhura’s face says she has. 

“Right, just keep an eye on G’zel here. And Carol and Ash if you would assist me in the hallway…” Khan doesn’t wait for them to follow as he marches to where the first line of missiles is stacked.

He points at the tubes that contain his most trusted deputies. “Open that one first—then that one.” Then he sees the tube with Klia’s eldest son Oren. “Not that one. Not worth the trouble.” He points out the correct missiles.

“How many made it?” Ash asks, coming up next to him.

“72. 30 women. 42 men. You shouldn’t be surprised that all of the deaths were female.”

“Ugh, mom,” Ash says but Khan catches the sadness beneath the sarcasm. He’s had little time to grieve. Khan has had more than a year.

“Carol knows how to open them. Please let her demonstrate.”

“I’m not going to free a pack of bloodthirsty augments,” Carol protests.

“We’re nice if you pet us.” Ash puts on a fake look of innocence.

“Ash will ensure that you don’t release any of the more volatile personalities. He’ll also be a calming presence during their awakening.”

Carol looks like she’s about to protest, but then Ash walks up to one of the missiles. “So I press this button, right?”

“Not that one!” Carol dashes over to bat his hand out of the way.

Satisfied that Ash will keep things moving along, Khan turns to leave.

“Um, and just where are you going?” Kirk asks.

Khan responds by waving him down the hall. In the bedroom, he picks up the PADD and pats the spot next to him. “We need to set the chess board, which means we need to know everything about this planet: any life forms, the hazards, the best cubbies to hide in, everything.”

Kirk snatches the PADD away from him. “It’s not that complicated. The land mass is broken up into small continents. The terrain is consistently rocky. There are lots of… bird-like creatures. Pretty much everything swims or flies or hides in the dirt. They can park the Enterprise in the ocean—Scotty will be pissed, but that’s part of the fun. This ship could probably hide in the rocks. There’s this massive waterfall with a cave system underneath.” Kirk hits a button on the PADD. “Right there. I always did want to hide in a waterfall, although this one is more like Niagara Falls...”

Kirk’s face is so delighted. In spite of the gravity of their mission, he’s revelling in it. And Khan has a strong urge to kiss him but for the moment he pushes it down. “We just need to hide long enough for both Marcus and the Klingons to show.”

“What if Marcus gets there first?” Kirk asks.

“He won’t. G’zel has been transmitting since the moment she escaped her cage. Not to mention, some of the opera she sang was in Klingon code. It was rather clever.”

“And you _let_ her. Wait, of course, you did.” Kirk slumps back. “What else?”

There’s... nothing.

Well, there’s a lot that Khan could be doing. “We have five—maybe ten minutes until I have to go help Ash and Carol with the crew. Believe it or not, Ash is not the most convincing leader—let alone a manager.”

But there’s only one thing he wants to do, and he shows this to Kirk by drawing him in for a kiss.

It’s such a simple kiss. There are only lips—just the barest tug of flesh—and yet Khan feels like a hole has been filled in his chest. The analytical part of his brain wonders if the blood has something to do with this. This could be biological. But then, Khan considers, so what if it is?

Pulling back with a smile, Kirk says, “Five to ten minutes isn’t much.” Khan doesn’t miss the uncertainty in his voice. They haven’t done this outside of a heat. And then the Enterprise had shown up—followed by the Klingons. It’s been one thing after the next, and it’s not going to stop.

“It has to be enough,” Khan says as he slides off the bed so that he’s kneeling in front of Kirk.

For a second they stare at each other. Then Kirk leans forward to run his finger down the blood-streaked cut in Khan’s shirt. “This kind of pissed me off. A lot.”

He sounds surprised by it, and that gives Khan a sense of comfort. Kirk is as off-kilter as he is. Leaning into the crook of Kirk’s arm, Khan murmurs, “This plan may not work. I think it will. It’s the best course of action. The best payoff. But there are a lot of balls in the air. I could drop one.”

Kirk’s brow creases. “Then I’ll catch it. Maybe, punch you in the face with it.”

“I can think of better things that you could do to my face,” Khan says, and then he leans forward to lick at the growing bulge in the fabric.

Kirk’s next breath is a tense laugh. “What are you doing?”

This time Khan scratches his teeth across the fabric, and he can feel the tension in Jim’s thighs as he does so. “Oh, Jim, how adorable. Are we playing dumb?” Khan asks as he starts working on Kirk’s buttons.

Eyes heavily lidded, Kirk only nods as Khan pulls him out. “Yes and blind and deaf.”

“Not yet,” Khan corrects. He runs his finger over the soft bump behind the head. He presses a kiss and then he suckles.

“Oh, Jesus—enough with the—just shut up and—” Kirk cuts himself off as Khan grabs him by the base.

“Will you think me cliché if I bait you and say…” Khan purses his lips. “…‘ _Make me_ ’?”

Kirk gives him a look that is utterly wrathful and Khan would laugh except that Kirk grabs the sides of his face and with thumbs digging in, he commands, “Open the fuck up.”

Khan does. Kirk thrusts and it’s rough. But Khan eggs him on. If he slows, Khan pinches his arse. The one time he pulls away, Khan bites hard on the inside of his thigh. And eventually Kirk gives in and thrust and juts and devolves into mindless, wild jerking. 

Khan loves that his final shout is utterly savage as he grinds hard and spills gobs into the back of Khan’s throat.

Wiping his mouth, Khan crawls up next to him, pulling on his hips so that they’re twisted like a double helix. Kirk’s eyes watch him, brighter than the sky and twice as beautiful.

“You’re perfect,” Khan says, and he can’t help the awe that causes his throat to catch.

Kirk’s voice is still a bit ragged as he answers, “No one is perfect.”

“You are, and if anyone contests the fact, then they’re not as smart as I am.”

“Or as humble,” Kirk deadpans but he’s smiling.

\- - -

Khan has a dangerous case of the warm and fuzzies. He has Kirk. He has his son. And now he has his crew. 

Ash has woken twelve members of the former Botany Bay crew. He’d done as Khan requested and woken Wes and Eric, and then naturally, he’d set about opening the tubes containing all of his friends.

“I speak not lies, my comrades in ice. There are totes hot aliens out there.” Ash has something rolled up and smoking in his fingers.

“Ash, didn’t I give you a job?” Khan asks, leaning around the corner.

Wes and Eric stand at attention the moment they see him. Ash, though, wrinkles his nose before taking a drag on the joint in his fingers. “You abandoned me to do the nasty with Captain Sex. Therefore, I’m completely entitled to a smoke break.”

Kirk chooses this moment to round the corner. He grinds to a halt when realizes he’s come upon a group of Augments. With the way his hair is smashed irregularly, there's no question as to what he and Khan have been up to.

“Is he an alien? He's pretty,” Ash’s friend Naples asks.

Ash snorts loudly. “Correction: Captain Sex Hair.”

“We have twenty minutes before we arrive at our destination. Wes and Eric, please continue opening the even-numbered missiles.” Then he turned to face the larger group. “As Ash informed you—I hope—we’re under pursuit by both an alien fleet and an Earth-vessel.” Khan wipes at his brow. “So please listen carefully. I’ll bring you all up to date on the centuries you’ve missed.”

\- - -

Kirk is still listening to Ash when he realizes Carol has joined him at his side. “We’re two minutes out,” she says.

“Yeah, I was heading to the bridge…” But he’s having a hard time leaving. Khan’s rapid-fire summary of the past two centuries has been holding his full attention. So far, there’s been no detail wasted. And Kirk’s learned things—about Klingons, mostly—but also about technological developments in star travel that he’d never known. Then again, Kirk is pretty sure Khan could make any topic interesting.

“They’re not what I expected,” Carol says beneath her breath.

“How so?” Kirk whispers.

“They’re so…”

“Human?”

“Yes—but... not.” Carol gives him a concerned look. “Bridge, Captain?”

Kirk follows her to the bridge—where G’Zel promptly attacks them.

\- - -

Khan has only just finished explaining the best way to take out a Klingon, complete with the three-stroke demonstration, when he hears the clatter from the Bridge.

“I think Sex Hair is demonstrating,” Ash says in a helpful voice.

Khan doesn’t waste another second. He runs.

G’zel has a phasor but Kirk has a knife. Uhura is unconscious in the corner. Without a doubt, G’zel stunned her first. Carol is collapsed beside the nav panel, holding her leg. By the angle, it’s broken.

Khan’s instinct is to throw himself in front of Kirk, but Kirk’s expression causes him to halt. 

He’s got this.

G’zel raises the phasor at the same time that Kirk throws the knife. The phasor goes off but the shot is wide. Kirk’s knife, however, hits the weapon directly. It goes flying.

And then Kirk charges. 

Baring her teeth, G’zel throws a punch, but Kirk dodges it with ease. Then he kicks the legs out from under her. He turns to Khan and holds out an open palm. 

Without really thinking about it, Khan tosses him a knife.

G’zel shoves at him, but Kirk twists her arm back and holds the knife at her throat. “I will slice your vocal chords if you try something like that again.”

“You have no honor,” she spits.

“And you have too much pride.” Kirk looks over his shoulder. “Would one of you please pick up that phasor and stun her?”

Ash volunteers, spinning the phasor on his finger like a Texas Ranger before finally firing right between G’zel’s eyes.

“Now throw her back in the cage,” Kirk says.

It’s at that point that the sensors start beeping. The ship hums loudly as the inertial dampeners kick in and a blue and navy planet fills the main view screen.

“Time to land,” Kirk says. “You—” he points at Naples. “—take our Soprano to her cell. Ash—can you take Carol to the sick bay? She’ll show you what she needs. As for the rest of you...” Kirk looks at Khan.

Khan can’t help himself as he says, “I’m sure they’d love to learn how to conduct an trans-orbital landing with an alien vessel.”

But Kirk doesn’t take it as a joke. He’s in full-on captain mode so he says, “Right.” And he waves them over and points at the projected map. “So, class, lesson number one—we’re aiming for that dot.”

This is when Khan realises he might be in love.

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, super sorry to delay on the next chapter but ~~accidentally~~ I reread some old Kirk/McCoy favorites [Switch](http://archiveofourown.org/works/168135) and [Inertia](http://cards-slash.livejournal.com/381394.html) and lost two days (like a big idiot)...


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorrrrry for the delay. I had epic technology fail and then vacation took me away and blah blah etcetera.
> 
> Anyway, this chapter is quite actiony. Next chapter should under no circumstances take so long to post.

Starships are built in outer space for a reason. Because gravity is glue. Gravity is what holds the universe together, and so if you put a starship near a planet, it’s like a housefly getting trapped on fly-tape. And despite being from Iowa, Kirk always thought fly-tape was a little hick, what with the piss-colored tape dangling from the window and the shriveled black bodies blaring like polka dots (but Grandpa Kirk had always said, “Don’t knock what works.”) Anyway, as the ship plunges through the upper atmosphere, Jim reminds himself that this should be working, and if it doesn’t... they’re all going to be shriveled polka dots. “Uhura, please tell me you know the Klingon word for Manual Navigation.’”

Uhura, who is awake from being stunned by G’zel, is super pissed off and definitely freaked out by Kirk’s “Piloting 101 crash course for Augments,” but she also doesn’t want to die so she says, “You have to use the pylon.”

He was afraid of that. The pylon looks less like a pilot’s steering yoke and more like a big phallic baseball bat. In fact, there’s a bigger tube on top of the main tube that Kirk’s pretty sure can be manipulated up and down to control the vertical thrusters. As practical as that aspect of the controls might be, Kirk resents having to look like he’s jacking off the ship just to land her. But whatever, he flips the switch so that control transfers to the pylon. He adjusts the view screen, and then he takes them west and down.

The augments—at least twenty-four now—crowd around the front window. The system’s sun follows them so that the planet they’re seeing brightens upon descent. There is no flat land. There is only ocean and mountain. As Kirk takes them low, they can make out the details. The plants that stalk about the great bluffs are tufted with long yellow-green strands, making them look like ferns, but at the line where the ocean hits, the foliage switches to pulpous bundles, all in an oxblood color. 

“It must be some mineral in the ocean altering the light spectrum. Or they’re simply not photosynthetic,” one of the augments is saying.

“But the plants on the cliff are green—which makes chlorophyll likely,” another responds. And it’s a little adorable. They’re all floored, just the way Kirk was the first time he set eyes on alien soil.

Kirk, himself, is a little more impressed when they reach the waterfall. It’s on the largest mountain, which is probably the size of the United Kingdom (if it were one big mountain). And okay the sheer towering scale of the black walls would be awe-striking enough, but then add in the oxblood ring that fills the inside of caustic reservoir and the place looks more like a sacrificial grotto than anything.

Kirk is already contemplating the effect of passing through the wall of water when Khan speaks up. “The Enterprise just passed through the atmosphere.”

“Uhura, wait to comm them until _after_ we’ve had our morning’s shower.” 

Uhura’s eyes go wide. She’d missed this part of the plan. “Shower? You are not going to attempt to go through that. Kirk, don’t even think—”

“Hold on,” Kirk says, and then pushes on the pylon.

And okay, he knows he’s going to have to jack the pylon a bit to counter the force of the water, but he didn’t expect to have to full-body pump the thing as the ship teeters under the pressure. They’re jerked right—then left, and it’s all Kirk can do to keep them from falling backwards instead of forwards.

“I hate bathing.” Ash groans loudly.

But then the ship spits out on the other side. The way Khan is looking at him from across the room—Kirk is pretty sure the bastard wants to crack a really, really bad joke about what Kirk’s been doing with pylon, but he ignores him, focusing on the more important task. The view screen is glistening from the water droplets, but that’s all they can see. The interior of the cave is pitch black.

“Khan or Uhura—do you see something that would indicate external lights?” Kirk asks.

“Got it,” Uhura says. She hits a switch by her and then the “cave” behind the waterfall is illuminated. 

“Holy shit,” Kirk says (because what else is there to say?).

The cavern is _huge_. I mean the Klingon D-7 is not a small motherfucker by any means. But even inside the starship, Kirk feels himself standing taller, as if it might help fill the space. Plus, the space is definitely big, but the walls have a magnifying effect. They are crystal white and craggy. Weird shapes seem to shift through them as the ship’s lights soar past.

Kirk finds a button that activates the landing gear and settles the ship on the flattest section he can find. The Klingons are going to be here any minute—and Marcus might be joining them. He turns to the group of Augments who are collectively staring at him with their too-sharp eyes. “Right, so that’s how you conduct a trans-orbital landing with a Klingon vessel through twenty metric tons of water. Questions?”

\- - -

Khan doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like this at all. 

The mineral sample from outside the ship is 43% done with its analysis, but it’s already showing that unusual compounds are active within the surrounding cave systems. “We’ll have to use space suits,” he mutters aloud.

What he doesn’t expect is for Carol Marcus to poke her head in beside him. “That compound there—” She’s pointing at the mercapatal-uranium binding. “We call those nano-needles. A more sophisticated version is used in regenerators. They stimulate full-chain recondensation of the DNA matrix, without causing apoptosis or upsetting necessary methylation at the epigenetic level. It’s weird that’s it’s sitting on top of the rocks like that.”

Khan raises his brows. “Do you think we’re in danger if we leave the ship?”

Carol takes a step back and sucks in a breath. In pain. She’s wearing crutches with regen pads encasing her leg. “The air is breathable. There are no life signs, but I’d... I’d wear gloves. Just in case.”

Khan nods. “For a weapons expert, your knowledge of nano-Biology appears to be abnormally active. Then again, given the connections you’ve made between post-light speed travel and variant pressure on carbon-based mutation. This is probably kid stuff to you.”

Carol, to his surprise, flushes. “My original interest was primordial biology, actually. I wanted to the study the universe’s beginnings so that I could replicate them in specific locales. It was only because of my dad that I chose weapons.” She looks down, biting her bottom lip, before looking away. 

“A shame. Biology is much more interesting. Most nuclear physics these days can be done with a computer. It’s just equations and radiation exposure, isn’t it? Well, you can always still change your field.”

“Starfleet doesn’t work that way,” Carol counters.

Khan raises a brow at her. “It’s a bureaucracy. You figure out who signs what and _then you make them._ ”

“I bet _you_ could,” she says, and she’s gone from biting her lip in a way that’s nervous to biting it with... intrigue.

It’s at this moment that Khan realizes how much his life has changed in the span of two weeks. First, because right here—with Carol biting her lip—this was where he’d expected to be when he’d walked into that bar in California. He’d expected to woo Carol Marcus right into his bed by expressing nothing more than an intense interest in her brain over her body. That it would have worked is without question. And second, because normally—even back when he was married to Klia—he’d still be conscientiously making an effort not to notice Carol’s spectacular beauty. But there’s no effort now. Khan knows without a second glance that the creature before him is beautiful, but he simply doesn’t care. Not when he looks across the room and Kirk is there, arguing with Uhura over what message to send to Pike. Because looking at Kirk makes Khan feel downright tribal. Khan almost wants to kill for him just so he can prove himself.

Regardless, Khan turns back to Carol. “Your recent paper stands on its own. You should simply ask for an expansion, testing additional variables—but make the direction completely biological. Regardless, it won’t raise any red flags. Whatever you do don’t ‘co-partner’ with a biologist. Co-partner with a boring physicist who will accurately manage your lab work, that way he can’t steal your credit. At some point, after publishing, you’ll get interest from various biologists hoping to swoop in on your research. Don’t be flattered. It’s not flattery when someone is trying to co-opt your sweat and blood. Don’t be a girl about it. Deny them all. If one of them suggests something remotely useful then take their idea and say you’d already thought of it. Then publish the paper that you’ve always meant to publish and declare you’ve created your own field—which, really, _it is_. And if you’re going where I think you’re going—”

“Terraforming,” Carol fills in with a quiet voice.

“—exactly. Don’t talk to the Terrans. Talk to the Vulcans, and explain to them the _logic_ of terraforming a planet to look just like they’re old one. New Vulcan might have approximate temperatures but it’s far too volcanic for such an old people. Get nitty gritty and you’ll have your new label. You just have to be an utter bastard about getting your way. Otherwise, you’ll just be that ‘weapons physicist that contributed something.’”

Carol is blinking at him with wide eyes. “I’m not sure...”

Khan has no time for this. “Then you’ll fail. In the meantime, would you mind helping me with additional samples outside? I don’t want my people getting eaten by the rocks.”

“I can do that,” Carol says slowly.

Khan spins around. Wes is there, as he always is. “We need everyone to suit up, but they need to be sure to avoid skin exposure. However, if they could form a perimeter in...” Khan pauses.

“I’ve already located the weapons supplies. I’ll see to it,” Wes says, and it’s why Khan likes him and his partner so very much. They’re not leaders, no. Not if we’re talking strategy, but dammit if they don’t get things _done_.

Khan is already walking over to Kirk when the main comm screen light up. “Pike to Kirk—we’re putting her in the ocean. Since we have the entire Klingon fleet chasing our ass, there’s not much choice, but we do not—I repeat—do not like the readings we’re getting. If Spock hadn’t said this was an effective strategy before—I’d—”

The connection crackles with static.

With a frown, Uhura glances up. “Captain, I just got the signature of an unmarked vessel entering the atmosphere. It’s Federation. Not Klingon.”

“It’s Marcus. He’s on the USS Vengeance.” Khan would recognize that signature anywhere. He, after all, is the one that sketched her most basic shape.

“Is that why the Enterprise’s signal is choppy?” Uhura asks.

“Pike to Enterprise—” PIke’s face flashes on the screen—before cutting out. “—stomp on the Prime Dir—” There’s another fizzle, and then... “—errmaids.”

And then signal completely cut out.

Kirk ran over to the comm stations, hands flipping over the controls. “Where—the fuck—did they go?” He turns to Khan. “Marcus?”

Khan shakes his head. “If we can’t find him, there’s no way Marcus can.”

Kirk nods and he’s pressing the buttons for a planetary scan when there’s a new incoming signal. “Captain, the Vengeance is broadcasting,” Uhura says.

“It would be better if we gave him no way to get a lock on our location,” Khan says.

Kirk nods. “Don’t respond—not yet. Just listen to what he’s saying.”

Uhura nods unsteadily, but she does as commanded and puts the broadcast on the primary view screen. Marcus’s face appears on the screen, and Khan has to suppress the flux of rage in his muscles. He reminds himself that his crew is not dead. He has his son. All Marcus has is that big-ass ship and a missing daughter.

Khan also can’t help but delight in the way that Marcus sounds absolutely spitting mad as he says, “Admiral Marcus to Pike — what is your status in locating Commander Kirk and the fugitive Khan Noonien Singh? Your last report to Starfleet indicated that you were travelling to theses coordinates and had made contact before making military contact with the Klingon fleet. There are dilithium sub particles in the atmosphere that indicate you passed through it—so where the hell are you?”

“He doesn’t know about us,” Carol says. 

“He’s scanning the planet,” Uhura says. She looks at Kirk. “He’s going to find us.”

“That monolith can’t fit through our door,” Khan says.

“Except that he could just blow up the mountain and bury us,” Kirk says dryly.

“Their scanners are focused on the mountain,” Uhura reports. “They’re tracking our dilithium trail. It’s fuzzy with the ocean and the waterfall, but Marcus isn’t stupid.”

“Carol, darling, if you would be so kind as to ask your father _not_ to blow you up—it would be helpful.”

“Wait, you want to give away our signal?” Kirk is giving him a look. It’s sexy but it’s also annoyed.

Khan shrugs. “We only need to buy ourselves a little time. Carol,” he repeats, dipping his chin toward the comm panel. 

Carol squares her shoulders and marches over to the comm panel. And then she comms her father.

Truthfully, Marcus’s face when he realizes that Carol is on a Klingon vessel—with Khan—is possibly the best thing ever. It’s only slightly topped when Marcus tries to get a lock on Carol’s patterns, but _can’t_ because the topographical interference from the planet is too great. Of course, when the Klingons finally show, that’s icing on the cake.

\- - -

Kirk kind of wants to strangle Khan. He’s sitting with his ass on the main console, arms crossed like the cat that got the cream. And okay, maybe, strangling isn’t the word. Maybe it’s more like Kirk wants to fuck the smile off his face, but this is not the time to celebrate. “So while the Klingons and Marcus play shoot ‘em up—we need to find out what happened to the Enterprise. Yesterday,” Kirk says.

“They’re swimming,” Khan says, dismissing Kirk’s worry with a flip of his wrist.

“This is a ball we can’t drop,” Kirk says severely, and at last Khan’s smile straightens as he realizes that Kirk is damn serious.

“If we can’t see the Enterprise, that means Marcus and the Klingons can’t see her either.”

“Their last location was in the sea just south of the island.” Kirk pulls up the map. 

“True...” Khan waits.

“I need to make sure they’re alright.”

Khan’s expression does that thing where it comes from annoyed to petulant to patiently understanding in a three second period. “They’re a big starship. I’m sure they’ll be fine. We have the Klingons to worry about.”

“I’m not,” Kirk says, checking the scans again only to see nothing and nothing and nothing. “Okay—here’s what we’re going to do. You worry about your people—be ready for whatever Marcus or the Klingons send our way. I’m going to go after the Enterprise.”

“How? With flippers?”

Kirk rolls his eyes and heads down the hallway. It’s a little insane how much of a working knowledge of Klingon he’s built up over the last day. He looks for the correct word— _Qal_ , and he bangs on the right closet to—sure enough—finds the wetsuits and oxygen masks. Now the real trick will be finding a suit sufficiently small to fit him. He drags two out and holds them up side-by-side trying to see which is less large.

“You are not doing what I think you’re doing,” Khan says from behind him.

“I’m doing what I said I would do.”

“And how exactly are you expecting to maintain contact once you reach the Enterprise?”

Kirk has actually thought this part through. “Short wave radio. It won’t be awesome but...”

“The mineral analysis on the planet has been showing a strange array of bio-active compounds. I’m already making my people glove-up before venturing into the cave. There’s no way I would let them dive into the damn ocean.”

Kirk stares at Khan for a long hard second. “Don’t worry. This is all in a day’s work for me. And at some point, I will fuck you.” And then he brushes past a gob smacked Khan and heads for the bridge.

Kirk makes quick work of getting Uhura up to speed. They set the short-wave comm channels up and test them. Carol is bent over the science dash, and when she looks up at him and sees that his suit is airtight—with a completely covering, she looks somewhat appeased before she sighs and says, “The USS Vengeance has taken out four Klingon battle cruisers so far. And it still has shields over 90%. However, nine Klingon cruisers remain and are adjusting their strategy.”

Kirk doesn’t miss that she’s talking about the ship—and not her father. “So I don’t have much time.”

“None, really.”

With a nod, Kirk runs to the nearest airlock—only to be blocked by Khan. “I need you to take Ash with you,” he says. “Just in case.”

“Khan...”

But Kirk doesn’t really get to argue because Khan slams him into the airlock, kicking the activation lever behind them, and then there’s the hissing sound of the air vacuum pumping, but Kirk barely registers it because Khan knocks him back onto his ass, and then he’s crawling on top of him, biting through the wet suit’s fabric, up from his belly button until he reaches the underside of Kirk’s neck. When he’s finally close enough to bite his lips, Khan says, “If you don’t come back, I’ll kill you.”

Kirk snorts. “No, you won’t.” And when Khan gives him a deadly sort of look, Kirk shoves at him and says, “because I will come back, you moron.”

“Not an insult commonly applied to me.”

“You’re stupid for me.” Kirk knows he’s smiling—can’t help it.

Well, and then Khan smiles too. His hair is drooping, so he brushes it out of his face and leans back, still looking deeply disgruntled. “Maybe I am.” Though, he doesn’t look like he likes it so much.

It’s then that the outer doors unlock with a heavy metallic grunt. “This is me,” Kirk says, pushing up on an elbow.

Khan doesn’t move off of him. “Take Ash with you. He’s a good swimmer.”

“I don’t need to—” Kirk starts.

But then they both hear, “Get off each other right now. Just—no—and genetic visual incestual repulsion—and my eyes are burnnnnnning.” It turns out Ash was standing at the bottom of the platform.

“Accompany Kirk,” Khan says, standing and archly brushing himself off. 

“And just where is your boy toy off to?” Ash asks.

“Commanding Officer,” Kirk mutters. “Not _boy toy_.”

“You’ll be taking a swim out into the ocean,” Khan says.

“Fab. I love swimming blind,” Ash grumbles.

Kirk doesn’t know if this is such a good idea, but he finds himself leading Ash to the front of the canyon, anyway.

\- - -

“So you’re not just his rebound—you took the blood?” Ash asks as they move among the slippery rocks.

Kirk’s hackles raise as he realizes where this conversation is going. He’s tempted to shut it down, but then he thinks that the long term effects of not getting along with Khan’s son may be pretty bad. “Uh, I think you’re talking about the pink syringe.”

“You took it.” Ash means it as a statement not a question. “I don’t want details—just how did it work?”

Kirk slides off the rock he’s shuffling down. “I think I need you to clarify what you mean by details...”

Ash’s eyebrows go high. “Nothing having to do with sex with my dad. I know how heats work. I’m his son. I have them too. I mean—with the physical changes.”

“You have them too?”

“Yeah... All of it.”

Right. So this Kirk can handle a bit better. This is more of a “When Boys Grow Up....” conversation, just the specific biology is “When You Inject Your Mutagenic Blood into a Host Mate...” conversation. Kirk levers himself over another rock, dodging the stream of water that’s cascading from above. “Honestly, I don’t know all of the effects. I know that my internal organs adjusted down there. I didn’t really have Bones—my doctor—say just how, but I also know that I’m—-”

“—stronger and faster. That was obvious when your fought the Klingon Shee-Rah.”

“Shee-Rah?”

“Never mind, but like... what about the psychological stuff?”

“Are you asking me if I like your dad—because I do.”

“Do you feel, you know, a pull?”

And this actually is too much for Kirk to handle. He gives Ash a severe sort of look. “I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it.”

“Which means it’s weird and serious—I mean, _cool_ , coool, so um....” Ash points at the ledge they’re standing in front of. “We diving?” 

They both look down at the forest of red foaming algae that banks the bottom of the cliff. When the waves push it up, it seems to pulse. And it’s not like Kirk hasn’t seen loads of weird vegetation before, but if he had another option, he’s pretty sure he’d find some other way to get to the Enterprise.

Unfortunately, there’s no other option.

“On three...”

Ash pulls down his mask with Kirk, and honestly, Kirk gains new respect for the kid as he jumps right on cue—with no hesitation.

When they hit the water, there’s the normal plunge of bubbles, and it takes a moment for Kirk’s view screen to set their course as they descend into the mahogany depths.

They’ve swum in silence for a solid six minutes when the red disappears and a ghostly navy is all that remains in the tides around them. 

It’s Ash who first sees the external lights of the Enterprise. “There,” he comms Kirk.

They angle downward, and Kirk has a spare thought or two that the ship seems unusually dim. He squints and asks for lighting at 110%, but then there’s a shrieking sound from his left.

Ash is fighting something. With fins.

Kirk pulls a knife out of his pocket, ready to come to Ash’s aid when something long, thin and powerfully squishy wrests the blade away. He only has a second to turn around before something like rubber suctions across his face and his vision goes black with the depths. A glurging sound feels his ears so that his head wants to explode. His last fleeting thought is, “Okay, now Khan _will_ kill me.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to confess that ever since I read [Morning Shows the Day](http://archiveofourown.org/works/410289/chapters/680585) with the Cromticians -- I've wanted aliens in my fic that we're comparatively enthralling. So really, that's what this chapter can be explained by... Also, Kirk POV.

Kirk awakens to a dim blue light emanating through a web of shadows. It takes him a moment of blinking to realize the light is filtering through something that looks like a choral lamp shade. It takes a lot more blinking for his eyes to distinguish that he is still underwater. His hands are free, unchained. He’s not wearing his mask. But when his hand flies to his face, it’s to feel something slippery. The thin red layer is molded to his nose and mouth. He starts to pull at it, only to feel the steep decline in oxygen. 

He exhales in a shower of bubbles. The room he’s in has near-translucent walls. The floor is covered in a foamy green algae. There’s a pattern to the colors that reminds him of a rug or carpet. 

“Greetings, falling star person,” a squeaky voice says behind him.

Kirk slowly turns around to see... 

Mermaids? Wait. No, they’re not remotely humanoid. Kirk’s eyes adjust, and he can distinguish that they’re more like dolphins. Blue-and-pinkish. But in addition to the usual fins, these guys have long elephant-like noses that span out like a tentacle. And Kirk isn’t sure just how he knows this—maybe it’s because he watched elephant cartoons as a kid, but both dolphin-people are without a doubt smiling at him. Their trunks curl and uncurl as if to wave hello. They go from looking at him to looking at each other, as if checking their expressions, and then the sides of their mouths curl up and they’re definitely smiling again.

It’s unnerving, because Kirk should be searching for a weapon. He should be planning a defense. Instead he finds himself smiling back. Said smile is not some weird pheromone-induced thing, either. It’s just that they are...

Freaking adorable. 

And that’s even comparing them to the fuzzy Ginger Ewoks (as Kirk likes to call the marsupial sentients) on that forest planet who insisted on nose rubs—even from Spock. Kirk’s never even seen a dolphin in real life, given that they’re a protected species on Earth, but he’s always sort of wanted to, and now he has two dolphin-like creatures that are _speaking_ to him.

The dolphin on the right sets loose of burst of bubbles and says to the other, “He came in the star raft—he’s not a falling star.”

“But he’s from _up_ not down,” the other says. His tail rudders him upwards so that he does a fast and tight flip in the water.

“Um, hi,” Kirk says because he’s decided at this point that the dolphin-people are definitely not going to eat him.

“Hello! Nice to meet you. Are you hungry?” the first dolphin-person asks at the same time the second squeaks, “Sorry to scare you before.”

“There was someone else with me—Ash?”

“Oh, yes. Your friend. He’s in the garden.” Dolphin Two bounces excitedly.

“Doing what?” Kirk asks.

“Having lunch. He was hungry and had never had—” The universal translator offers ‘clam-species’ as a translation. This is the first time that Kirk looks down and realizes that his UT has been modified in some way. There’s something like a barnacle attached to it. But it’s definitely not a normal barnacle. There’s some type of wiring or tubing encased inside the shell. Kirk has no idea how the dolphins with the elephant trunks got it working but it’s a definite sign that they’re technologically advanced.

He decides to introduce himself. “My name is Kirk.”

“And I’m Red Tooth,” the first one says, twisting his gums to show off coral-colored teeth in the back. The second introduces herself as “Wind Bop” … by whirling in a circle.

Kirk has a terribly rude desire to pet them. “Um, what about the big ship that we were approaching?” Kirk asks.

Wind Bop lets out another bubble burst. “We didn’t mean to, but we—”

“We scared them!” Red Tooth squeaks and covers his face with his fins.

“We thought there had been a rock slide, so we sent out our—” the UT translates the squeak-squeak as ‘Epipelagic-level hydraulic buffers’ “—and they put up shields and when we tried to communicate... they couldn’t understand us since they lack sonar, but then we saw you and were able to use our longitudinal-to-sonar wave tuners!”

“So that’s how we’re talking—right now!” Red Tooth does another flip.

They’re just so happy—and mobile. It makes Kirk feel like he’s holding a ball in front of a pack of Border Collies. “Oh, huh, cool. Well, I’d be happy to introduce you to the people on the ship, let them know they you mean well.”

“We thought you would. You have nice waves,” Wind Bop says seriously.

“Thank you,” Kirk says diplomatically. “Your waves are nice as well.”

And then the two dolphins totally clap with their fins.

\- - -

The dolphins are a little less cute when their trunks are active. Or, they’re still cute, but as their trunks expertly unlock coral doors and manipulate strange dangling wires, the level of motor control demonstrates how they were able to easily overpower Kirk and Ash. 

When Kirk sees Ash again, he’s playing a game with a larger group of dolphins. The game in question seems to involve a bulbous (but fast) group of fish swimming through various large rings of choral. The squeaking is so loud it’s almost painful, and Kirk has to adjust the volume on his UT as it starts saying strange words like “bludger” and “snitch,” and Kirk suspects the device might have finally short-circuited from the ocean. Honestly, the game looks like fun, except that there’s zero time for this.

“Oh, hey, man—you woke up,” Ash says when he sees Kirk. He does a playful flip in the water before swimming over. The rest of the dolphins halt the game to turn to watch. 

“We need to get to the Enterprise,” Kirk says. 

What he’s not expecting is the collective squeak-whine from the dolphin group.

“Aw, it’s okay dudes. I’ll be back. Maybe bring some friends. We can play teams—just _after_ we deal with the bad horned people and the shark.”

Several of the dolphins smack their tails in a tense, throw-down fashion. 

“I assume the shark is Marcus?” Kirk says.

“Dude, the Eepies used to have mad-bad shark issues. I mean, imagine one of the Eepies here but with claws at the end of their trunks and like thrice as big and with zero intelligence other than _eat-eat-eat_.”

Kirk doesn’t really want to imagine it, though he’s been chased by any number of horrible beasts in his travels. “They’re called Eepies?”

“Yeah, and where we’re at now, it’s one of their small towns. They have whole cities under the ocean. It’s kind of rad. If we have time, I’d want to go hang.”

Kirk exhales in a rush of bubbles. “So much for the Prime Directive...”

Ash is giving him a questioning look when one of the Eepies—Red Tooth—swims over to them. “We’re ready to take you to your space raft.”

\- - -

So Wind Bop is the one who adjusts Kirk’s short wave radio so that it can transmit underwater. Still, they have to swim in range of the ship in order to transmit.

Kirk speaks directly into the sponge-like microphone that Red Tooth has given him. “Kirk to Enterprise. Do you read me? Over.”

There’s no response.

“Kirk to Pike. Would you pick up?”

“Commander Spock speaking. Please answer the following security question—” In the background Kirk hears grumpy muttering that can only belong to Bones “—following the attack on the Narada, what was the name of the planet to which you were temporarily exiled?”

Kirk thinks this might be another one of Spock’s failed experiments with humor. “Delta Vega.”

There’s another long pause and then Spock says, “Our sensors indicate that you are accompanied by three additional life forms.”

“I am in the company of Ash—who you haven’t exactly met—but who isn’t a threat and then two...” Kirk really wants to say dolphins but that would be rude. “...Eepies, who are very friendly and intelligent locals who’d like to say hi.”

This time it’s Pike who picks up. “Kirk, really? Did we not just have a conversation about Star Fleet rules and respecting the chair?”

At his side, Red Tooth and Wind Bop swim back a bit, obviously looking worried, but Kirk waves them off. “Hey, Pike, what’s the matter with my girl? We were getting zero signals from you.”

“There’s some type of strange EM field going on down here—it’s screwing with our sensors. Plus, we had some problems with the warp core on the way in and—what the hell is that squeaking?”

Red Tooth is talking a mile a minute. “The raft’s nuclear heart is at odds with the anti-hydrogen fields permeating the area! It would be impossible for them to transmit any signals in the up-way without up-down converters. The plasma shielding wouldn’t ionize the sub-wave barrier. We can possibly adjust the pressure ratio, but—” 

With a lot of nodding, Kirk waves him off and speaks into his sponge-mike. “That squeaking is an Eepie offering help. The Enterprise is getting jacked by their sub-surface aquatic shields.”

“Sub surface aquatic shields?” Spock’s voice says he thinks Kirk’s swallowed far too much ocean water.

“You should meet them. They’ve upgraded my UT with sonar translation.”

There’s the sound of hushed whispering before someone finally hit the mute button. But Kirk isn’t worried. 

“One moment,” Spock says.

There’s another long period of silence before one of the airlocks opens on the proximal side of the Enterprise. 

“Alright, they’re letting us in,” Kirk says. Only, then he realizes that they might have a new problem. He turns to Red Tooth and Wind Bop. “Uh, can you guys breathe air?”

He gets a chorus of squeaky chuckles in response. 

\- - -

The Eepies have robotic-looking wetsuits—with lever and wheel extensions that attach to their fins and tail allowing them to walk-roll at an upward angle. And it’s a little awkward getting both Red Tooth and Wind Bop into the airlock (kind of like squeezing in two horses) but they manage, and then the pump removes all the water from the compartment, Kirk finally removes the red squish from his mouth, and then the door jams open, revealing Spock, Bones, and Pike—plus Cupcake and a whole lot of security personnel. They’re wearing diplomatic uniforms, which at least partially explains why Bones keeps messing with his collar and looking more pissed than normal.

“Commander Kirk,” Pike says in that overly patient way he has.

“Let me introduce...” 

The squeaking commences. It seems louder without the water as a buffer, although there’s more of a bark to it.

\- - -

It’s not surprising that Pike hauls Kirk into a room and spends ten serious minutes giving him a dressing down.

What is surprising is that Spock interrupts via comm. “Comrade Red Tooth has an advanced level knowledge of hydraulics-based engineering. Hehas already given me the calculations necessary to reset and recalculate our sensors. Moreover, when I described to him the steps and equipment necessary to fix our warp core, he had several useful suggestions that neither Mr. Scott nor myself had considered. In addition to his free exchange of knowledge, he also expressed a willingness to provide equipment should would be in need of it.”

Kirk couldn’t help but ask, “Spock, why are you calling him comrade? This isn’t 20th century Russia.”

“Within the Eepie culture, it seems that there is little designation of title or class. Comrade Red Tooth suggested that I call him ‘Friend Red Tooth’ but I believed that such a form of address was overly familiar, and therefore ‘Comrade,’ despite it’s sociopolitical associations with Terran history, was a more apt designation.”

Pike leans in to speak to the mike. “What’s the status of the ship?”

“She’s swimming, Sir!” This time it was Scotty’s voice. Only, rather than sounding upset at the state of his lady, he sounded _enthralled_. Kirk wouldn’t be surprised if the Enterprise left this planet with a few planned upgrades.

Pike pinched his brow. “Mr. Scott, I see the water outside my window. Therefore, I’m aware of that basic fact.”

“We’re just about two minutes from having sensors online, Sir. In fact, we’ve gotten some modifications we’ll be able to put to use.” 

Just like Kirk expected. “Scotty—you screw with my ship and—”

“And by ‘his’ ship, Commander Kirk means The Enterprise—which he is _not_ technically assigned to.” Pike gives Kirk a meaningful stare. “And Mr. Scott—technological exchange is _not_ what we came here for.”

“Sir,” Spock says, “I wish to dispute any contention that the Prime Directive has been violated on this planet. My interview with Red Tooth indicates that they gained the technology necessary for air travel even before my own race; however, they chose not to make use of it outside of recreational activities and basic security. Inherent in the ethical creation of the Prime Directive was the belief that all species will one day wish to expand their horizons by venturing into space. However, it would appear that the Eepies had such potential, as they have a basic knowledge of warp and post-nuclear technology, but they chose to used it for different applications. As this is one of the exceptions to the Prime Directive, I believe we can trade and communicate freely with this generous race. I must say, based upon my observations, though they are limited, it seems that most of the Eepie's drive is not toward physical expansion or new discoveries but is directed at...” And here Spock pauses, as if he couldn’t believe he was going to say this. “...playing in the water.”

“Red Tooth,” Kirk calls into the mike, “are they showing you a good time?”

Spock answers instead. “Comrade Red Tooth is not available at the moment as she is taking the opportunity to ‘zip’ through the safer parts of the plumbing system. Mr. Scott recounted the story of how you and he trans-warp beamed above the ship. Ergo our guest asked to replicate the experience.”

Kirk laughs. “So... yeah. Pretty good time.” 

“Great,” Pike says. “And what happened to the other Eepie who came abroad?”

“The Augment Ash, escorted by security personnel, asked to take him to the Rec Room. My last report said that they were engaged in the Terran game of basketball, Sir.”

Pike rubs at the lines in his forehead. “That’s fine. Pike out.” And then he turns back to Kirk. “This is all your fault.”

“I believe the true source of our problems is Marcus, Sir.”

“And your Augment—and really, Jim? I got McCoy’s report. You took mutagenic blood.”

Kirk cringes. “Is that written down on paper somewhere...?” 

“You think McCoy is that stupid?” Pike shakes his head. “I just don’t know how we get out of this. I can’t even see what’s going on around us. You say that Marcus is taking on the Klingons in some mega-ship.”

“The USS Vengeance, Sir.”

“I wouldn’t believe you except...” Pike picked up his padd and thumbed through some screens. “An extraordinary amount of money has been moving into Section 31 over the past year. And I only came upon that information by accident when I noticed some of my own programs being stripped of funds. Supposedly Archer had some oversight on 31, but Archer is suffering from advanced age and undergoing light-treatments for his macular degeneration. Also, Marcus has always been a warmonger. He’s obsessed with taking on both the Klingons and Romulans. He was on the USS Kelvin with your dad, you know.”

“He used Khan’s knowledge to build the ship.”

Pike grimaces. “The thing is, I want to trust you.”

Kirk uncrosses his arms and leans forward. “It’s paid off in the past, Sir.”

“You’ve got good instincts, I’ll give you that—but just... how do you see this playing out? Even if we can somehow manage to handle the Klingons and Marcus, it’s not like the Federation is going allow this group of super-humans to roam free. Especially not Khan. I’ve been talking to McGivers—the ship historian—he was a pretty ruthless bastard back in his day. The area he governed may not have suffered from genocide and iron rule the way that the rest of the planet did, but he lead more than 100 successful military campaigns from the time they hatched him from an amniotic sack to when he finally boarded the Botany Bay to flee the planet.”

“I don’t think he intends to reenact the past, Sir.”

“You don’t _think_ —well, that’s not good enough. You took his mutagenic blood, kid. You’re his goddamn lover. You’re compromised. And besides, we have seventy-two other bastards to think about.”

Kirk lowers his head with a sign. “I can’t vouch for all of them, Sir. I know their dangerous. However, I think we can be smart about this.”

“And just what are you going to do that’s so smart? Take the Klingon ship and sail off into the stars?”

“No... my crew is on the Enterprise.” As Kirk says the words his chest feels heavy. He thinks of Khan and his heart races faster, but when he thinks of the past five years—when he was captain of this ship—he thinks of how fulfilled he’d been. It had been like having a family.

“You can’t have your cake and eat it too, you know.” Pike, to his credit, says it with kindness.

“There’s such a thing as win-win,” Kirk replies stubbornly.

Pike rolls his eyes and waves him up. “My padd is showing a slew of messages from McCoy. I think it’s time we went to the Rec Room.”

\- - -

Every member of off-duty crew is in the Rec Room. Given that Wind Bop is rolling around in her suit, squeaking in delight—that particular fact isn’t so shocking. It’s quite the entertainment to see an Eepie trunk-slam a basketball over Cupcake’s head. What is notable, however, is that all of the security personnel have stripped off their uniform tops and left their discarded phasers ...with Nurse Chapel, it would appear, so as to join in on the game. Nurse Chapel has the phasers neatly lined up in front of her as she yells, “Defense! Defense! Oh! Oh! And Hendorff—no! What are you doing? That fish-on-training-wheels just owned you! Defense!”

Pike stares at the pile of red shirts and weapons and then throws his hands up in the air. None of the game players notice this. It seems that it is Wind Bop versus the entire Enterprise security detail, and everyone in the crowd seems to have picked a side.

Except for Bones who currently has the tricorder running over Ash. As Pike and Kirk approach, Bones says, “No pathogens to worry about from our visitors, Sir.” But then he turns to Ash. “You still owe me a blood sample.

Ash, who has been abnormally quiet, holds out his hand at the moment that Bones lowers the tricorder. “Needles don’t bother me, so whenever, Doctor. And you promised,” he says with a wide smile.

Bones hands over the tricorder to Ash who makes a woo-hoo sound, and immediately starts scanning Bones—in the general area of his junk.

This naturally makes Kirk laugh.

“What about our newest Augment?” Pike is attempting to sound polite even as he watches Ash manipulate the tricorder like its a video game controller.

“Well, other than a little Delta-9-THC in his system—” Bones begins.

“Hey, that weed was medical,” Ash butts in. “And I was coming off ice. Doctor Dreamy, do you know you have some excess bad stuff—because I’ve never seen this word before—in your prostate? Because I could help with that...”

“—he’s _clean_. And Sir,” Bone says, determinedly not looking at Ash, “I might add that he’s not technically an Augment.”

Pike’s brow creases. “He’s Khan’s kid. You are, aren’t you?”

“He is,” Kirk says.

“Ash Katra Singh,” Ash answers, not looking up from the tricorder. “Does this stick have x-ray functionality? Can you see through clothing with this?”

Bones pointedly ignores Ash. “Well, exactly, Sir. He might be born from the biologically engineered—with many of their attributes—but under Federation rules, he’s not genetically engineered. His code was a variable of chance. A lot of people around here have genes left over from the eugenics period—”

“—heh, likely some from me,” Ash adds in.

“But that doesn’t make them illegal,” Bones finishes.

“Say illegal again,” Ash murmurs at Bones.

Bones rolls his chin to the side to glare at him. “Son, you couldn’t handle me if you tried.”

“Doctor, I have two hundred years and at least three hundred hours worth of experience on you,” Ash counters with a leer.

“Now that is illegal,” McCoy says, and he snatches his tricorder back.

And Kirk is completely thrown—because there’s a hint of a grin at the corner of his best friend’s lips that—though barely visible to the unaware—is blaringly obvious to Kirk who knows him so well. Bones actually _likes_ Ash.

The universe is fucking weird.

“Gentlemen...” Pike starts to say in a much anguished tone, but thank God he doesn’t have to finish, because the main comm broadcasts with Scotty’s voice. “Engineerin’ to Admiral. Sensors are ready as soon as you give your word, Sir.”

“On my way to the bridge,” Pike snaps back, looking for all the world like he’s ready to flee.

“Status on the warp core?” Kirk asks.

“She’ll need another hour, Sir. We’re working fast.”

\- - -

Upon seeing Kirk, Chekov somewhat jubilantly proclaims, “Keptin on the Bridge!” Except then he sees a frowning Pike and adds, “Admiral on the Bridge—too.” ...before burying his head in his hands and swearing softly in Russian.

“Admiral, Commander,” Spock greets them. “We are not sensing any Klingon ships in the planet’s atmosphere or orbit.”

“Where’s Marcus?” Kirk interjects.

“We are not sensing _any_ ships,” Spock clarifies. 

“They could be cloaking,” Kirk argues.

“The Federation doesn’t have that technology,” Pike says.

Except that then the communications panel chimes. The beta-shift ensign—Kirk can never remember her name—announces. “Captain, we’re being hailed.”

“From the Kingon vessel?” Pike asks, before sighing and saying, “Open the channel.”

“Don’t—!” Kirk starts to protest, but it’s too late.

Admiral Marcus’s face fills the screen. There’s sweat on his brow, and a dead body, dressed in a black uniform but stained with blood, lies at his feet. His eyes narrow as he speaks menacingly. “And so the guppy emerges from the murk of the pond—now, tell me.” And Marcus turns to stare right at Kirk. “Where the hell is my daughter?”


	8. Chapter 8

Khan wants to find something cute and innocent then murder it slowly. This allegedly “great” plan of Jim’s worked for all of fifteen seconds. Nevertheless, when Khan tried to check-in with Kirk and Ash, he got nothing and nothing and _NOTHING_.

It’s a sign of how well they know him that Wes and Eric are bent over the science officer’s station, staring at the local map and pretending like their fearless leader isn’t about to rip anyone’s limbs off. Then again, they actually have something to do, given that they are taking comms from the various crew members exploring the caves.

Lieutenant Uhura, though, has no idea about his mood (or she’s playing chicken) because she marches up to him and shoves a padd in his face. “Read this.”

Khan kind of wants to tell her to fuck off. Yet... there’s no denying that the woman has authority, and well, he glances at the padd and it’s in Klingon. It reads, _Seven eggs hatched in the eye’s nest. The hen shall fall upon the song._

It’s basic code. Eggs are ships. Hatched means “blown to smithereens.” The eye’s nest is a little trickier, because “nest” is battle, but eye indicates some form of chicanery, so they’re being a bit _sore_ about their losses. The hen is the admiral’s ship—and the song is what they call the Klingon Command. The fact that the phrasing mirrors “fall upon a sword,” is more subtle. Suicide is a sticky topic in the Klingon culture. 

“They’re just outside the galaxy’s perimeter waiting on reinforcements,” Khan pronounces. “This is far from over.”

Uhura’s cocked eyebrow says she already knows this. “Marcus is continuing to comm us. He’s trying to trace our signal. And if he has enough time, he will find us.”

Khan is fine with that. “Any word from the Enterprise—or the short wave radios?”

The corner of Uhura’s mouth quirks. “Tell me you’re not seriously worried about Kirk?”

Khan can’t help his glare. “Worried? _Worried._ Yes, Kirk and my only child are in an alien ocean teaming with unknown life signs not to mention volatile, bioactives substances. Consequently, I fear that the sound of radio silence might indicate the snapping of their mortal strings as some underwater dinosaur might have eaten them or alternatively some mobile jellyfish may have latched onto their air tanks, perforating the tubing and causing them to sink to slow, strangling deaths in the black ocean chasms. Truly, I must seem such a fretful baby to you. Please go and fetch my hanky right now so I can sob—it—out.” Okay, and if Khan’s gnashing his teeth and Wes and Eric are wide-eyed and slightly ducking by the end of this speech, perhaps it’s a sign that Khan’s a little tense.

Who knows what it says about Lieutenant Uhura that she nods without so much as a flinch. “They’ll be fine. Unfortunately, Kirk’s luck is exponential not terminal.”

“Unfortunately?” 

“He’s a good captain. He has my loyalty.” She rolls her eyes. “Also, my annoyance.”

Khan is still trying to decide if he’s impressed or repulsed by this woman. “Aren’t you the one who’s dating the Vulcan?”

“The _half_ -Vulcan, Spock, who is on the Enterprise—under the ocean with no signal—so, yes, I am. You could say we’re in the same boat.” She raps her knuckles on the ships console.

“And what is that like, the dating the Vulcan part?” 

He’s expecting her to be defensive, but instead, Uhura’s lips twist and she looks thoughtful. “Somewhere between Calculus III and getting the accents right on the Romulan past-subjunctive.”

This makes Khan scoff. “Why... you almost make it sound fun.”

Uhura grins with her tongue on the edge of her teeth. “There are corporeal derivatives.”

Khan barks out a laugh. “The pointy ears and bad haircut don’t detract?”

Uhura makes a small moue. “Occasionally, the surface integrals do get in the way of diphthongs.” 

The woman is downright nasty. Khan decides he’s deeply impressed. He’s of half a mind to ask her if she’s remotely descended from one Klia Proust Katra when the short-wave radio squeaks loudly.

“Kh—” Static. “—ead me?” It’s Kirk’s voice.

“Status? Location?” Khan demands, pressing down hard on the button.

“The signal is coming from the Enterprise,” Uhura answers. “They’re under the ocean at their last known coordinates.”

“So, hey there, Superman. I’m alive.” 

Kirk’s voice is glaringly cheerful. Khan may think he’s the most beautiful creature in existence, but he’s beginning to side with Uhura on the annoying part. “For now,” Khan mutters.

“Oh, you missed me. Anyway, we have Marcus on the line, and he’s a little pissed,” Kirk says. “Seems he wants to know where his daughter is?”

“I see...” And Khan is pretty sure that Marcus is listening. Kirk’s voice has that _fake_ edge to it. “She’s out in the caves, collecting samples. Should I call her back in? It’ll only take a moment.”

“Eh, one moment,” Kirk says, then inexplicably Khan hears squeaking. Rather like a killer whale—or a dolphin. 

“Do you have an orca on board?” Khan asks. “Or are you being extra-social with a squeegee?”

“Uh, that is a local intelligent species talking. And Marcus has a lock on us. He’s demanding that you answer our signal.”

“Or what?”

“He’ll blow the Enterprise out of the water.”

Khan curses and then he thinks. The Vengeance took out the Klingon ships faster than he’d expected. As long as Marcus has the Vengeance... and that’s when Khan realizes what he needs to do. “Tell Marcus we’ll give him what he wants.”

“What?” Kirk’s tone could not be more flat and disbelieving. “Wait—we don’t need—”

Muting the radio, Khan pushes between Wes and Eric over at the science panel. Using his finger, he draws a basic outline of the USS Vengeance and then starts in on mapping the strategic pathways. “Wes, you’ll take A team through engineering and through the Officer’s Mess. Eric, you’ll go through Sick Bay and up through this emergency shaft. Now, Lieutenant Uhura, you’ll be able to manage the transporters on this ship?”

“You’re not just sending Carol?” Her eyes say that she thinks he’s being reckless.

But Khan is never reckless. “Lieutenant Uhura, would I leave such a lovely young woman unescorted?”

Her eyes narrow. “First, call me Nyota. And second, I assume you know a way to overcome their blockers.”

Khan brushes some dust off his sleeve. “Fine, Nyota. I confess that I may have put in an override or two... or two-hundred.”

She nods, considering. “The minute he has her—he’ll go after the Enterprise. Then us.”

Khan taps his finger on his chin. Marcus will mostly likely spend at least thirty seconds to confirm that his daughter is safely on board. Then he’ll probably bitch at her. Not that Carol can’t give it back twofold, but Uhura is right. There’s always the chance that Marcus will be actually use his brain—and preemptively strike.

This is also when he realizes the radio has been silent for the past few minutes. The Enterprise has muted the transmission as well.

He speaks at the radio. “Enterprise, we’re preparing to send the admiral his baby girl—can you raise shields?”

There’s a slight pause then Kirk says, “That’s what I was trying to tell you. We don’t need them.”

\- - -

Red Tooth is angry—which means he’s silent and toothy—and Kirk is doing his damned best not to focus on how cute it is. The Eepie is making hard clicking sounds as he talks quickly into his comm device. Kirk catches words like “shark” and “blow fish” and “missile fallout” then a lot of highly technical hydraulics engineering terminology that his UT is clearly straining to keep up with. Kirk might have an advanced knowledge based in areas like astrophysics and post-warp mechanics but there’s not much in space that has to do with anti-matter interactions with large bodies of water.

Scotty, however, is nodding so rapidly that Kirk wouldn’t be surprised if he wet himself from the constant vibration. “Just make sure you don’t miss the back end of the nacelles. We wouldn’t want her gettin’ her heels clipped, ay?” 

Red Tooth acknowledges Scotty’s request with the flap of a flipper, though he doesn’t stop at all in his communication.

Meanwhile, Kirk has to deal with Pike.

“Experimental shielding, really?” Pike is sitting in the captain’s chair with fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Admiral, you tried reasoning with Marcus. It didn’t work,” Kirk says as gently as he can. Pike had spent a good ten minutes trying to talk down his longtime colleague. It hadn’t done any good. By the end of it, Marcus was spitting like a camel and demanding they turn over his daughter or face their imminent demise. 

Looking up from the Science station, Spock adds, “I do believe that Admiral Marcus is beyond logic.”

“And the Federation is now officially at war with the Empire—there’s nothing he ‘can do.’ Therefore the prick is threatening my ship.” Pike stands up, looking like he wants to punch something. “How long until we get Uhura’s signal?” Pike asks, and Kirk doesn’t miss that he said Uhura and not Khan.

Except that there is no signal from Khan. Instead, Sulu wheels around in his chair. “The Vengeance just activated weapons—two torpedoes starboard.”

Khan’s voice comes over the radio. “Our pieces have moved onto Marcus’s board.”

That’s the signal. Whatever the hell that means. Kirk shakes his head. “Okay, Red Tooth, whatever you’ve got...”

“Missiles closing at one kilometer southwest sixty-eight degrees.” Sulu’s hands are braced over the controls, balled into fists. Normally he’d be doing evasive maneuvers right now. Instead they’re sitting pretty in a big bath tub.

Kirk catches something about “storm vipers” before Red Tooth makes three loud squeaks. Those are dead clear. They are a “1, 2, and JUMP!”

The whole ship shakes as boiling jets of water (well, it’s maybe water?) shoot past every open view panel.

“Computer: starboard view,” Spock commands, adjusting the main screen.

They all watch as the incoming missiles bounce off the oncoming jets of water, almost like they are being redirected by the curve of wave, except that this wave seems to twist around them—catch them in a binding coil and then yank them backwards into a flower of spray. Whatever explosion occurs is swallowed. Something that looks like steam and lightning erupts a few seconds later.

Just coming in through the door, Wind Bop claps her fins and definitely does some floor stomps with her tail—like this is simply a fireworks show. Her enthusiasm is infectious, though. Pike sits back down in his chair. “Well, that worked,” he says.

“Four more missiles launched,” Sulu announces. His hands are off the controls now. He is simply watching Red Tooth expectantly.

The next four missiles are taken out by a watery shape that looked not unlike a giant, pink squid.

The next eight are out by a huge web of choral. 

“Now, that is a lovely shade of orange,” Scotty compliments Red Tooth, who bashfully hides his eyes behind the curl of his trunk.

Spock looks up from his science station with a raised brow. “Commanders, I do believe the Eepies are generously sharing their aerial water art so as to ensure our protection. It is normally used for their annual solstice festivities.”

“Huh, aerial water works,” Kirk says, although he’s not sure that quite describes what he’s seeing. “It’s very nice of you to share—along with the whole saving our lives thing.”

“Joy is best found with safety.” Red Tooth waves him off with a fin.

Another ten missiles launch.

“Do the sea dragon!” Wind Bop squeaks. “The sea dragon!”

It is in fact the sea dragon. It is a violent shade of orange and red. Right where the torpedoes hit, great ultraviolet wings erupt like twin black holes.

“Far out,” Ash says, standing next to Wind Bop, who nods his trunk in fervent agreement. The back of the bridge is, in fact, starting to crowd. McCoy is standing in the back of the room, looking grumpy and rolling his his eyes at every new display. Still, Kirk doesn’t miss that he’s here... standing next to Ash.

“Spock, you might as well broadcast the starboard view to whole ship,” Kirk says. “Before the rest of them try to crowd in here.”

Spock flips a switch and says, “Indeed, Commander, I believe this will have a positive effect on morale.” 

“How long can we keep this up?” Pike asks, who now has his chin resting in his hands as he watches the view screen.

Red Tooth and Wind Bop both squeak-chuckle.

Spock frowns ever so slightly. “The Eepies solstice celebration does indeed last thirty hours from the first moment of daylight through the last. I believe that they have sufficient supplies so as to take out the entire the USS Vengeance’s entire arsenal and still have at least 6.3 hours of supplies left over for their planetary holiday.”

“Oooh.” Pike points at the next shape, turning to Red Tooth. “My translator says that’s a star fish. We have similar creatures on my planet.”

“They eat them too,” Ash says, from where he’s sitting cross-legged with his chin in his open palm. “They’re kind of more like clams, though, and very tasty when served on the half shell. The meat is the most silky along the radial lines.”

“You should come feast with us!” Wind Bop says, only to squeak happily as a school of rainbow-colored fish take out a full twenty missiles over head.

“How do you do the colors?” Scotty wants to know.

Wind Bop starts explaining as Kirk realizes that his shortwave radio is hissing and crackling. He adjusts it and says, “Yeah?”

“Jim, please explain what the fuck?” Khan demands.

Kirk laughs. “I did say we met some friendly locals...”

“Fine. Let your friendly locals knockout missiles all day—as long as they don’t actually take out the ship.” 

Jim is about to ask exactly why Khan is so worried when the Vengeance plunges through the cloud layer. There aren’t missiles this time. Marcus is coming in with full energy weapons.

“Shields at max.” Pike sits upright, before turning to Red Tooth. “Missiles—what about photon lasers?”

Red Tooth meeps before saying, “We could swallow the shark but—”

“I repeat: do not take out the ship,” Khan’s voice blares over the radio.

The first blast hits the ship. Alarms go off and Red Tooth makes another meep sound.

“What do you mean— _don’t take out the ship_?” Kirk yells into the radio.

Alarm bells go off as the second blast of lasers hits. 

“Admiral, we’re leaking water in Bay 10,” Spock reports. Evacuation procedures are already underway.”

“Sir, should I fire back?” Sulu’s hands are on the controls.

“She ain't meant to take water!” Scotty throws his hands up running off the bridge.

“Khan!” Kirk yells.

“Shields at 75%,” Scott says.

“Mr. Sulu,” Pike says, “Return fire—on my command.”

“Prepare for a direct hit,” Spock says.

Red Tooth and Wind Bop knot their trunks together.

Except that the blast never comes.

Instead the comm chimes. “The Vengeance has halted in the lower atmosphere and is now hailing us, Sir.” Spock brushes down the wrinkles in his shirt before straightening.

“What—do—you-want—Marcus?” Pike growls, before snapping, “Main view screen.”

It is definitely not the admiral.

“My apologies, Commander. It seems we were a bit delayed.” Carol Marcus is seated in the Captain’s chair on the Vengeance. Her legs are crossed to the side, so that her blue uniform rides up and she’s showing off a great deal of sleek thigh. Wes and Eric are standing with crossed arms on either side of her. The rest of the Augments seem to be holding down various black-clad security personnel. Ash’s friend Naples is standing over the admiral in the corner, who appears to be stunned unconscious.

“Lieutenant, I confess you're not the Marcus I was expecting,” Pike says, averting his eyes as Carol uncrosses her legs to stand.

“I thought not.” She runs her fingers down the arm of the captain’s chair. “However, with the help of the former crew of the USS Botany Bay, my father and his crew have been apprehended. The Vengeance is now to be returned to the Federation under your direction.”

“Mother of God.” Pike rubs at his heart. “Status of the crew—as well as...” Pike blinks at the rather severe looking bunch surrounding Carol. “...your crew.”

“There were several injuries but no casualties. I hope you agree it best that the Vegeneance’s crew should be turned over to Federation justice.” Carol spares a glance for her father.

“Happy to do so.” Pike makes a show of washing his hands. “Now as to figuring out the rest of this mess...” He gives Kirk a rather severe glare, before his whole face blanks and then he smiles rather evilly. Turning back to Carol, he says, “In fact, as admiral, I intend to beam aboard the Vengeance as its commander immediately. You—” He points a finger at Kirk. “—are reinstated as Captain of this clusterfuck.”

“Th—” Kirk starts to say, except Pike holds up a flat palm.

“Trust me. No thanks could possibly be necessary.” And then Pike, signalling for certain security personnel to follow him, heads for the transporter room.

And Kirk sort of can’t help himself. He throws himself in the chair with a full one hundred and eighty degree turn. “Captain to Engineering. How’s my girl?”

“Pissing all o’er the ocean. We need to get her out.”

“We got impulse?” Kirk asks.

“Fer _now_ ,” Scotty bites back.

“Mr. Sulu, please set her down on the safest, flatest spot you can find. She’s had a rough day.” And okay, maybe Kirk pets the nav console a little.

The Enterprise takes flight.

\- - -

“Captain, Security has alerted me that you have a visitor in the transporter room.” Spock’s inflection on “visitor” tells Kirk exactly who it is. “As he is both listed as a wanted felon by the Federation and also known as someone who assisted in preventing Marcus’s decimation of this ship, Security is requesting instruction as to his admission.”

With an eye roll, Kirk picks up his shortwave radio. “You used the front door and everything.”

Khan’s voice comes through crystal clear. “Knock-knock,” he says flatly.

“Kirk to Transporter room. Please have Security stand down and let them know that I’ll be in the transporter room momentarily.”

“Will you be long, Captain?” Spock asks with his typical raised brow.

“You have the bridge, Commander. I’ll be right back.” Well, and then as soon as he rounds the corner, Kirk runs.

\- - -

Khan is sitting on the edge of the transporter platform, looking bored and impatient as he easily juggles three knives for the display of the security crew. When Kirk arrives, he catches them out of the air with careless grace and stands. The glare Kirk gets is first annoyed then appraising—a bit angry for a split second—and then Khan purses his lips and it changes to a much softer expression.

“Stop being intimidating.” Kirk crosses his arms. 

Khan brushes past the security guards with a panther’s smile. When he falls in step with Kirk, Khan’s hand slides up Kirk’s back to lightly squeeze at his neck. His fingers brush through the short strands of hair—and Kirk wants to lean into the touch, but now... with his crew all around him, it’s really not the time.

“Is your crew still on the Vengeance?” Kirk asks conversationally, even as he steers Khan down the left hallway.

“No. They’ve been comming with Ash, who’s insisted they come meet the Eepies. By this time, I imagine they’ve all changed into their bathing suits and are indulging in the feast at the free raw bar.”

“Who’s on the D-7?” Kirk asks.

“Nyota is there along with a few members of my crew. She’s monitoring the Klingons on the edge of the star system—” which causes Kirk to startle—but Khan pushes him forward so that they’re still walking. “And don’t worry. She’s been sharing all of that information—and more—with Mr. Spock. Your bridge will not be caught by surprise. And besides, I can assist Pike with the Vengeance’s weapons systems if need be.”

Kirk shakes his head. “They’re Klingons. If they’re not dead, they’ll come back with even more blood lust.” Kirk halts in front of one of the guest quarters. It’s normally used for visiting dignitaries, but the captain’s quarters have been occupied by Pike. 

“They’ll butt heads for at least a couple of hours,” Khan says. “So use your override, Captain—and open that door.”

Kirk both hates and loves how Khan’s voice makes him shiver. Regardless, his fingers press the buttons, and then the door is sliding open. 

It is expected when Khan tries to slam him up against the wall. But that’s not the way this game is going to be played. Not this time. Not if Kirk has his way. 

That’s why, as the doors slide shut behind them, Kirk twists out of Khan’s grip, catching his elbow so that it’s not Kirk but Khan who has his cheek smashed into the room’s monitor. “You’ve gotten stronger,” Khan assesses. “Even stronger than the last time.” Then Khan experimentally pushes at Kirk.

And okay, resisting the push is a bitch, but with trembling biceps, Kirk manages to leverage his weight and keep Khan from getting away. “Maybe, I have,” Kirk breathes, and then with the long nape of Khan’s neck exposed, Kirk can’t help himself. He licks a broad stripe before biting down.

“Really, do you have to be such a beast about it?” Khan asks deadpan, but then he jerks with his hips—causing Kirk to be knocked back a step.

His mouth is on Kirk’s and his tongue is deep in Kirk’s mouth. It’s biting then exploring, curling against Kirk’s before searching the edges. The inner crescent of Kirk’s bottom lip is tingling in a mad way so that Kirk has to gasp—get control of his breath—but he can't really. His legs are tangled with Khan's. They are teetering in the center of the room, but why the fuck when there’s a bed? 

Kirk’s hands seize on Khan’s ass and well he doesn’t exactly throw him, but there’s a bit of lift-off as he sends him back onto the bed. The springs inside creak dangerously but Khan crosses his arms over his head and just smiles like a goddamn invitation.

Kirk attacks his flight suit. Khan bends with the pull of the zipper so that there’s this wave of rippling pale muscle (Kirk doesn’t not make an embarrassing noise over this), and God, he might be taller than Kirk, but the way his long hair is slightly curled—probably from being in the moist caves—it’s really freakishly beautiful. Kind of Athosian. It’s enough for Kirk to run his thumbs just over the tops of Khan’s ears and say, “You’d look hot with one of those olive wreaths.”

Khan pulls his hands away with a furrowed brow. “You know you make zero sense, are you aware?”

“Just the wreath—wearing nothing else.” And Kirk grabs the fabric bunched around Khan’s hips, backing up on the bed so he can pull it down and off. Then Kirk looks for the pocket—where he finds exactly what he’s looking for. There’s lube because leave it to Khan to come fully prepared.

Kirk meets Khan’s eyes, and they have that wry, amused look to them. “And now I’m starkers and you’re completely clothed. How is that fair?”

“It’s not,” Kirk says, but when Khan tries to grab for his top zipper, Kirk redirects his hands to the one on his fly.

With an eyeroll, Khan unzips it and pulls him out. “It’s a very pretty cock,” Khan says, and before Kirk can muster a comeback, Khan is tip-toeing his fingers down the underside so that Kirk releases an involuntary groan. Then even more maddening, Khan is making small circles on the tip, and it’s all Kirk can do shove him back.

“Legs apart,” Kirk says, shoving at Khan’s knees.

Khan doesn’t follow the order immediately. He stares at Kirk, biting his bottom lip. “I’ve never actually done this part before.”

Kirk leans down to kiss Khan’s knee and then he keeps kissing, going down he can nuzzle at the soft, fuzzy corner between Khan’s thigh and his balls, and then it would be rude not lick at the long, glorious cock above—so Kirk does that, which causes Khan to loose a breath. He licks again and then he swirls his tongue so that Khan at last collapses into the pillow, and that’s when Kirk does what he wants and fully spreads Khan’s legs apart so that he can crack the seal on the lube and put a generous amount right where it’s needed. When Kirk pushes in the first finger, Khan’s breath shudders. It's exactly what Kirk wants, so he presses in and finds the spot so that Khan's eyes roll back. Khan had softened from the initial intrustion, but as Kirk works him open, it's entirely satisfying to watch his dick harden and then bob in the air, like it's begging.

“You have done this before,” Khan says.

Kirk shrugs. “Bit of a ne’er-do-well in my youth. Also, not too picky if they were pretty.”

Khan is gritting his teeth, and Kirk can’t tell if it’s from the increased speed from the finger going in and out, or if it’s from base jealously. “Never mention it to me again,” he says.

Kirk pauses and then he adds the second finger. “Fine,” he says as he pushes it in. “But it’s not like you were a virgin when we met.”

Khan looses a laugh before Kirk’s finger causes him to choke it off. His breathing is near hoarse when he says, “It’s different with you.”

“How?” Kirk asks, and he’s about to add the third finger when Khan shoves his hands away. 

“Put it in me now or—” He gives a final threatening glared before he turns over, more of less shoving his ass in Kirk’s face.

And well, Khan’s ass involves these two muscular round globes so maybe Kirk has to get in a lick or a bite or two, but then Khan growls, “Jim...”

So Kirk puts his head right into the dark, rose-colored cranny and then, with utter care, he pushes. There’s resistance, and holy shit it’s tight, so he says, “Breathe. Just breathe.”

Khan rolls his shoulders like he’s trying to untie himself from top to bottom, and it works fabulously as Kirk is able to give another longer push, so much deeper into the heat of Khan’s body. With each small push, Kirk’s breath grows hoarser, and he’s probably squeezing too hard on Khan’s sides, but Kirk is having a complete mental meltdown.

“Would you get on with it and fuck me?” Khan grits out.

Kirk thinks he nods, but still, it’s only when Khan starts thrusting back that Kirk regains his rhythm, and then it’s good. So ridiculously good. 

Kirk doesn’t hold back at all. He’s rough, and Khan’s finger are making dents on the stainless steel headboard, and at some point the bed dips because they’ve probably broken a leg or two, but God, he can’t stop his hips. 

The slapping sounds are loud, and he knows without a doubt that he’s pounding on the proverbial door that is Khan’s prostate because the man is writhing underneath of him—looking one second like he wants to dive away and in the next bracing hard for more.

“I’m going to—” Khan’s head rears back. “Harder. I need—”

Kirk might go a little crazy. It’s a mindless sprint that ends with everything turning white and dizzy as he collapses at the finish line.

It’s only minutes later, when Khan is carding his fingers through Kirk’s hair and pressing kisses onto his eyelids, that Kirk is again capable of forming coherent thoughts.

Like how he might be in love. And it’s not just the sex. It’s the staggering amount of the chemistry. It’s the constant challenge mixed with a heaping amount of fun. It’s like the first time that his grandfather taught him the rules of chess. Or maybe you could compared it to captaining the Enterprise. It just fits. Only... Kirk has no idea of where this is going. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to let Khan go. 

“I want to have my cake and eat it too,” Kirk says, pulling Khan closer.

“Honestly, I prefer pie and cream,” Khan says.

“Pe-Khan pie,” Kirk says, giggling at his own bad joke. Then he licks at Khan’s neck.

“You are intolerable,” Khan says, pushing Kirk’s chin away. His voice is fond, a little sad when he adds, “And also a Federation starship Captain—which is a role you love.”

Kirk does and doesn’t want to talk about this. Then again, they kind of have to. “And you’re an illegal Augment on the run.”

“I’m just human,” Khan says, sighing. “But we’ll...” He looks away. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Win-win.” Kirk looks into his clear eyes.

“Something like that,” Khan agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be posted by Wednesday or earlier. :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised.

The morning sun is bright, though still obscured by the mountain. The peak’s tip cuts into the corona, as if someone lifted out a slice of chocolate pie. Kirk can't help but wonder if that's a good sign or a bad sign. Maybe it would be fortuitous if the weather was all blue sky with ice cream clouds. Who knows? At least, with the ocean waves crashing against the black cliffs, the day's heat isn't a bother. The after-spray mists down over Kirk’s features and he has to blink his eyes to keep them clear.

“I know that the lime-like fruits were local, but I think the replicator did a pretty good damn job with this,” Pike says, holding up his drink. Then he adjusts his sunglasses as he stretches his head back to take in more sun. 

Actually, it was less than the replicator and more like Scotty and Red Tooth modifying his still, but Kirk doesn't think Pike needs to know that. He and Pike are in their swim trunks, stretched out on the smoother rocks. Pike had said there was “no fucking way” he was having this meeting on a ship when he could be drinking a caipirinha, getting a tan, and slurping down oysters (well they taste like oysters, anyway) out in the open air. 

“Those are some serious grandpa shades,” Kirk teases, before hastily adding, “not that you look like a grandpa.” And really, Pike is in pretty damn good shape. He’s got some solid definition in his stomach muscles and even if he’s on the wiry side, Kirk thinks that Pike could hold his own in most bar fights.

“Kirk, focus,” Pike says, but it’s with a lazy sort of tone. 

“Sir, I must object to this choice of location,” Spock says. Kirk loves how awkward the First Officer looks, fully clothed in his uniform and sitting cross legged on a small towel. He keeps frowning at the waves that crash into the cliff below them.

“Not moving,” Pike says while picking up his drink. 

“Then I would like to immediately proceed with this meeting’s agenda,” Spock says, flinching when a large wave sends a few drops onto the end of his towel. “Admiral Marcus is currently under the custody of the Eepies. I do not understand why this is advisable.”

“Aw, come on,” Kirk protests. “They wanted to put him in ‘time-out.’” 

“He’ll be in a cell when we head back,” Pike says with a shrug.

Spock blinks twice before flipping his finger across his padd. “And have you made a decision as to the fate of the Klingon G’zel?”

“Prisoner exchange,” Kirk answers. 

Spock folds his hands and frowns. “The Klingons have not historically agreed to prisoner exchanges.” 

“But the Romulans will.” Kirk smiles. 

“This was not your idea,” Pike says knowingly.

Well, no, this was all Khan’s idea, but Kirk doesn’t see how that’s relevant. “They’re big fans of her music. We’re getting a Federation officer back with the exchange. Uhura is already working on it with Chekov.”

“Speaking of Lieutenant Uhura, did she get that ‘transmission’ through to the Klingons?” Pike asks, flipping over on his towel.

“She did,” Spock confirms. “Lieutenant Uhura transmitted a video feed of the Eepies’ aerial projectiles taking out the USS Vengeance’s missiles. As a result of such a display of strength, the Klingons left the sector at 13:07 hours.”

“With their tails between their legs,” Kirk adds with a laugh.

“For now, anyway,” Pike says.

Spock nods. “While no peace can be brokered from this most recent battle, the Klingons will temporarily withdraw with the hope of eventually returning with greater forces.”

“But that’s what the Klingons always do,” Kirk says. “This is not like we converted a friend into an enemy. We just further pissed off an enemy who was already pissed off. Plus, we do have the Vengeance. The man might be insane, but Marcus managed to build her in less than a year from design blueprints to a full blown star ship—that’s a demonstration of the Federation’s power. The Klingons are going to have to do more than sharpen their swords to mount a viable offense.”

“That wasn't Marcus,” Pike says. “That was Khan.”

“Well, uh, yeah, he kind of helped.”

“So, those other Augments from the Botany Bay—I assume you've discussed them with your genius boyfriend?”

Kirk glowers but finally says, “Some of them—like Bones said—are not technically Augments. Like Ash. He’d expressed an interest in Starfleet and we were sort of thinking...”

“Lord help the Academy.” Pike takes a long draught from his caipirinha before waving Kirk to go on. “And what about the rest of them?”

“Uh, we figured McCoy could do psych evaluations with Khan and McGivers sitting in. I mean, some of them are generally nice, just extra talented. There’s no reason that they couldn't reintegrate. Take Naples—the red-headed girl who’s been working with Carol on collecting samples. She’s just a big nerd who’s excited to catch up on this century’s advances—then add to them.”

“I would concur that Dr. Naples’s work with Lieutenant Marcus has been extraordinary,” Spock says. “I have been granted open access to their ongoing projects. They have adapted the bio active substances found in the planet’s caverns and are integrating them into Lieutenant Marcus’s previous research. Dr. Naples has shown no signs of competitiveness or aggressive behavior. Rather, she spends most of her free time deep in research. Or with the augment Ash.”

“That’s just one of them,” Pike corrects.

“Don’t forget about Wes and Eric,” Kirk adds.

This time Spock is not so supportive. “Captain, I must object. They are highly-trained soldiers.”

“Who are a bit fashion-obsessed, didn't you notice? They’re fast friends with Gaila. It’s all about Marilyn Monroe and spider-silk dresses and blah blah...” Kirk is about to add in more—like how Wes apparently _knits_ when he’s stressed—but Pike cuts him off.

“So we do psych evals and then what? Re-freeze them? Lock them up?”

“Uh, right.” This is the part that Kirk is less comfortable with. “So we reintegrate those we can, and then for the rest—meaning those that are on the crazy side—the thought is that we could set up a colony...”

“Ceti Alpha V is nearby and habitable,” Spock says.

“And Khan is okay with being marooned on some rock?” Pike asks.

“Eh, I didn’t say Khan, did I?” Kirk looks away.

“Kirk, you know that I can’t—”

“Can’t do what? Give him a reprieve? He’s the one that saved our asses.”

“And got us into this mess,” Pike corrects.

“How many times do I have to say the name _Marcus_?” Kirk says with false brightness.

Pike sets down his drink and leans forward. “Kirk, I can handle the paperwork to get your ass out of this mess, but exonerating a former world dictator is out of my pay grade. I’m sorry. The best I can do is leave him on that planet with the rest of his crew.”

Kirk can’t meet Pike’s eyes as he says, “I see.”

There’s a long moment of silence before Pike says, “You ‘see’? What the hell does that mean?” 

“You’re telling me there’s no choice. I have to choose between being captain of the Enterprise and…” _Khan._

“Yes, Kirk, I have to say I felt that we were past this. You do have to choose—between responsibility and your dick.”

Kirk can’t help the surge of anger that wells up in his chest, but then he thinks of the Enterprise and he bites his lip and cuts off the jibes that are just tingling on the tip of his tongue. Instead he closes his eyes, forces himself to exhale, and says, “That’s not the dichotomy here. It’s not wrong to feel responsible towards people you care about. I care about the Enterprise and my crew—and even goddamn Starfleet and the Federation and all their fucking rules. Because I think it means something. We explore the galaxy seeking to spread what is good. We make friends with alien populations because we recognize that there is hidden awesome out there—and that by sharing our knowledge and resources we can simply help each other, and maybe even have some stupid fun while doing it. But you know what’s at the heart of all that crap? It’s actually having people who matter to you. So, yes, maybe I’m upset that I think I've found someone who matters and you’re belittling that. You actually think I’m stupid enough to waste everything on a passing fancy. Well, fucking fine. I won’t question your _logic_ with regard to my pathetic _emotions_.”

“Captain, I do believe the admiral is expressing—“ Spock starts.

“No, Spock—you don’t get to throw the book at me for this. Not again.” 

Spock’s expression blanks. “I was not—”

But Kirk really doesn't want to hear it. He’s said what he’s needed to say, and anything else is just going to be pointless bickering. “I’m going for a swim,” he says, and then he takes one—two—three steps to the cliff’s edge. He throws his arms out and leaps. The foam licks at him first and then the wave of aqua swallows him whole.

\- - -

Around them is nothing but black water. The masks they wear project the smallest amount of red light. Ash looks strange—rather like Neil Armstrong taking a step on the moon—suited up as he is in the pressure suit that the Eepies provided. Despite the thick covering, Khan can clearly see his face as Ash releases the first bubble.

The bubble is made entirely of radon, the heaviest of the noble gases. It takes only a second longer for Ash to push the small clip of hair inside the sphere with the needle, and then just as quickly, Khan injects the sphere with the specified currents. 

The sphere swirls in a blaze of fiery red. Almost like a glass Christmas ornament. Except it's so bright it makes them both turn away. Around them large fish and tiny fry flee in all directions. This desolate ocean floor is revealed, twisted with old skeletons and ancient debris. It would seem like a graveyard except it’s painted in a color that is without a doubt _bunny pink_.

But then the pink morphs to a dull rose before darkening to wine and then lastly, a deep violet as the globe surges upward, swimming its way up and up towards the distant sky. Khan watches it go and thinks it looks like a comet. Like Mars returning to the night. It is, as Wind Bop promised, beautiful.

“I think mom would have liked that,” Ash says quietly.

“She always did like red,” Khan agrees.

They’re quiet for a long while before Ash says, “I’m not sure she would have liked… well, this century, though.” 

Khan shakes his head. No, she wouldn't have. 

“Do you miss her?” Ash’s voice is so small. It’s a tone he’ll never use with anyone else. Only ever with his father. It makes Khan reach out to him and grab his cushioned, gloved hand. 

He waits until Ash’s eyes are meeting his when he says, “I’ll never stop loving her.”

“But you have Kirk,” Ash challenges.

“They fit in different places. The heart is not so small.”

“That’s what I tell all the girls and boys,” he jokes. 

It makes Khan smile for a second, leave it to his son to add levity even at a time like this. Still, the question was serious. “There was—and still is—a great darkness in me. Klia made me understand it. She made me find the edges of it. Your mother and I, we cut through our enemies like butter. We reveled in our own abilities. But in the end, that final day, when I looked at you and her and said, ‘we have to go,’ she looked at you and me and she…”

“We weren't enough,” Ash said.

“She would have said that _she_ wasn't enough. Don’t think she didn't love you.”

Ash nods, turning his face away. His voice is thick when he says, “In her way, I guess.” And then he quickly adds, “It’s okay—the thing with Kirk. I can see how it would be different with him.”

“It’s not something I planned.”

“Heh. I got that. And… it seems to be working out okay, especially considering the whole blood transfer thing.”

Khan cringes but then he says, “Do be careful with that.”

Ash snorts loudly. “We had this conversation already. The one about the queen bee and the drone bees and the special royal jelly.”

“It was two centuries ago.”

“Trust me. I have not forgotten a single _word._ ”

“Fine enough,” Khans agrees. The area around them has returned to pitch black. Way overhead, the red dot looks like a distant star.

“You ready?” Ash asks. With a nod, Khan grabs his son’s outstretched hand. Together they push up through the black tides, kicking their way until the reunite with day.

\- - -

They have to get through these evaluations. Ash, Bones, and McGivers are sitting in a row as the next Augment comes in. Kirk and Khan are behind the double mirror watching the proceedings.

“That would be Oren.” Khan points at the three-meter giant who is glaring at Ash. 

“You don't like him,” Kirk concludes by the tone of Khan’s voice.

“Hey, bro, going to try and kill me again?” Ash asks conversationally.

At the same time that Oren glares at Ash, Khan turns to Kirk and says, “That would be why.”

Kirk can’t help feel somewhat disconcerted. “You let him on your ship. What if he had been the first to wake up?”

“Despite his hulking shape, he’s not the brightest. His father was a champion weight lifter or something ridiculous. I suspect he wouldn't have figured out how to open the controls… Anyway, I let him on my ship because his mother insisted.” Khan frowns. “He was always a troubled child—and by troubled, I mean—“

McGivers hesitantly asks, “You were accused of the Dubai massacre…?”

“—oh yes he was,” Khan finishes.

“So this is just a formality,” Kirk says.

On the other side of the mirror, Bones is asking, “So if you were to reintegrate into our current, fuzzy as fuck, peace-loving world, what role do you see yourself taking on?”

“Safari hunter,” Oren says, before squinting and saying, “Assassin.”

Khan sighs. “If you dropped him on Kronos with a phaser, he could be useful. As it is, if he goes to Ceti Alpha 5, he’ll be all right if he has a place to aim… his tendencies.”

“There are lots of poisonous creatures, apparently. It’s a little like Australia in that way.”

“Twice his size?”

“Three to four times.”

“That’ll do it,” Khan agrees. “He is rather loyal—just a bit… jealous. He often undertook his various schemes with the idea that it would somehow be earning my approval. He’ll be fine with the others as long as he can kill things on a regular basis.”

“If you say so…” Shaking his head, Kirk marks Oren's name off on the list.

After Oren, there’s Catherine Tudor—an augment who apparently has psychic abilities comparable to a Vulcan’s. Spock sits in on that interview so as to prevent her from overly manipulating the others thoughts. Khan hates her, but when Kirk probes why, it seems she was a former good “friend” of Klia’s.

Khan’s sole compliment is that “She’d make a good leader.”

“Better than you?” Kirk asks.

Khan raises a brow. “No.”

“We could steal the Klingon ship, you know. Head out into the great beyond together.”

“That would mean you’d lose your captaincy. And it would cast a shadow over Ash’s future.”

It takes Kirk a minute to really comprehend what Khan is saying. “So you’d—what? Go to the colony?”

“They’d benefit from my knowledge and guidance. Plus, you could stop by and visit,” Khan says, not looking at him.

Kirk jabs him hard in the arm.

Khan doesn't so much as flinch. All he says is, “I won’t be responsible for making you unhappy. I just won’t.”

\- - -

They’re having a party in the Eepie’s capital city. The alleged reason to celebrate is that they signed a treaty the day before, though Kirk isn't feeling like celebrating much of anything. He’s been hanging out with the Eepies to avoid the rest of the bullshit in his life. And there’s no denying that the Eepies make for an excellent distraction. His team is tied with the other as they play “water quidditch” or whatever the UT calls the game.

“Captain,” Spock says for the third time. “Captain.” Make that four times.

Kirk has been attempting to ignore his first officer. But now a few of the Eepies are looking between the two of them and frowning. 

“Give me one second,” Kirk says, and then he swims over to Spock. “What?” he demands.

Well, and then Kirk realizes that Spock is actually in the ocean. He’s _swimming_. Spock hates water. If there’s ever water on an away mission, he’ll never volunteer to go down to the surface. Spock would rather be in a hot, about-to-erupt volcano than get his pointy ears wet. It’s a Vulcan thing. 

Still, Spock is here, and he looks pretty damned determined. “Section F, article 190, paragraph b of Federation Code dictates that should a ship be engaged in a five-year-mission, the Captain of the ship has prerogative over the detention of suspected prisoners. Moreover, sub-paragraph 9 states that should the prisoner demonstrate outstanding conduct during that period of detention, the Captain or First Officer may recommend a lessening of sentence.”

Kirk’s mouth opens then it closes. “Spock, we’re headed back to home port. We’re not on a five year mission.”

“Admirals have the ability to assign missions. Captain Pike has already agreed to my…” Spock has that I’m-not-smiling expression on his face. “…suggestion.”

Kirk can’t help his smirk. “Spock, are you buying me time?”

“I have being reading history texts from Earth’s late twentieth century.”

Unexpected. “You've been reading about Khan.”

“I have. I admit I find accounts on his behavior… fascinating. His acts are not unlike those of the Vulcans before Surak taught us to put aside our more violent tendencies and pursue self and communal harmony through logic and meditation.”

“You’re saying that you think Khan can change?” Kirk can’t help his scoff.

“Captain, I think change is possible for all of us,” Spock says solemnly. “Moreover, I believe that Khan Noonien Singh has one important consistency in all of his actions. He is, beyond measure, extremely loyal. However, it seems that many of his past ties led him in…” Spock swallows. “…savage directions. It is my belief, that if he is under the primary influence of a morally driven person such as yourself, his unique talents may be used for good in this universe.”

“I guess it would be logical to give him a second chance,” Kirk says. 

To Kirk’s surprise, Spock shakes his head. “My actions on your behalf are not entirely logical. I confess I wish to make amends for before—for, as you put it, ‘throwing you under the bus.’”

“Spock—you didn't meant—I mean it’s the whole ‘Vulcans cannot lie’ thing.”

“Nyota says using words to defend those we care about—when these persons have sacrificed on our behalf with no intention to harm others—is not so different than any using any other weapons. I found her logical compelling.”

“Oh.”

“Nyota and I also had a discussion of the prime directive, its underlying meanings, and whether an individual’s life can be superseded by a communal imperative to explore and assist but not interfere with the knowledge base of another species.”

“Jesus Christ.” Kirk can’t help but mess with the ear-device the Eepies gave him. “Did you she give you charts?”

Spock nods. “We discussed game theory and Pareto optimals before moving onto a broader discussion of Kantian ethics versus Nietzschian philosophy. Regardless in a future, I believe there are better ways in which we could approach such a situation as we did when neutralizing that volcano.”

Jim wonders, not for the first time, if Spock and Uhura ever actually get around to the sex, but then he shakes his head. “So—seriously—Pike’s going to let Khan take me on the Enterprise for five years?”

“I believe he was swayed by my arguments.” 

Kirk kind of doesn't know what to say. “Uh, thanks Spock. I mean that.”

“I will enjoy serving under your command once again.”

That makes Kirk laugh. “And how about joining our game?” Behind him, at last two Eepies give happy squeaks at the possibility of having a new player.

“I confess that being submerged is not a state in which I find any comfort. I shall return to the surface.” With a final Vulcan salute, Spock swims away.

\- - -

“It’s only five years,” Khan says. “What if I have to leave you in the end? What if leaving you later is harder than leaving you now?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kirk amends. “Five years is enough time for you to solve any problem.”

Khan narrows his eyes. “Stop appealing to my ego.”

“Just say yes.”

“The Vulcan really did this?”

“He did.”

“I rather resent that. I was quite happy in my disdain of their pointy ears and boring personalities.”

“Say yes, Khan.”

“Oh, fine.”

“Good enough.” And then Kirk kisses him.

\- - -

The next morning, the Vengeance and the D-7 head back for Starfleet while the Enterprise makes its way to the opposite side of the galaxy’s sun, where they drop off the augments on Ceti Alpha 5. Communications and engines are double-checked and then they’re all ready.

The entire command crew has chosen to stay behind on the Enterprise. Some of the larger body of crew opted to go back to Earth on the Vengeance, but as far as Kirk is concerned, all of the people who matter are on board his girl. Like, right now, Khan is down in Engineering with Scotty. They’re going over what upgrades from the USS Vengeance could help the Enterprise. Otherwise, Uhura is at the comm station, Chekov at Nav, Sulu in the pilot’s seat—and lastly, Spock is standing at his side. 

“Mr. Spock,” Kirk says, swishing back and forth in his captain’s chair. “Where should we go?”

Spock looks thoughtful before saying, “A journey to the Or-kai cluster would be give us an opportunity to put our upgraded hydraulic instruments from the Eepies to use. The system has at least three planets completed covered in liquid. Previous exploration was limited by technology.”

“Sounds good,” Kirk says. “Mr. Sulu, if you would?”

“Aye, Captain.”

Sulu hits the throttle for warp. The Enterprise races the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading along. :) I kind of had no idea where this story was going when I started but the journey was definitely fun. Thank you to all of you lovely, lovely people who read this as a Wip. MWAH.
> 
> Um, I'm turning this into a series because I have a one-shot that I want to add sometime in the near future. It will be called "Kirk's second heat." LOL. So, if you're remotely interested, please subscribe to the series so you get the update.


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